The Colvins And Their Friends

THE COLVINS AND
THEIR FRIENDS

BY

E. V. LUCAS

WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN PHOTOGRAVURE
AnIi twenty-five other ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & GO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.G.
LONDON

/•"trsi tfi

FRIlffXED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE

T his book is the outcome of a wish expressed by the
late Sir Sidney Colvin, both in conversation and in
written words in his Will, that, if I thought the material
warranted it, a record of his own and Lady Colvin's friend-
ships should be published To this end he had preserved
and carefully arranged a large number of letters, and it is my
choice among that correspondence which forms the principal
part' of the following pages. With these I have merged,
by kind permission of Mr. Edward Arnold, many auto-
biographical passages from Colvin’s Memories and Notes,
1921, together with other material gathered from his many
miscellaneous articles and prefaces.

As my own knowledge of the Colvins covered a period of
little more than twenty years, in only half of which can I
claim to have been on terms of intimacy, I haveliad to lean
much upon the testimony of others, chiefly Mrs. W. K.
Clifford, Sir Martin Conway, Mr. Basil Champneys, and
Mr. Laurence Binyon, to each of whom I am deeply in-
debted. I have also to thank Mr. Hugh Walpole for* the
character sketch which he wrote for this book ; the literary
executors of Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, W. E. Henley,
Henry James, Andrew Lang, and others, and all the writers
of leisters, who have allowed me to print from their corre-
spondence ; in particular naming Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, but
for who^ ready and generous acquiescence the book would
be a much less living thing. For Commander Oliver

VI

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Lock«-Laiu{>son, M.P.’s |«‘nnissuHj to use artic!«>s in the
Empue Revtexv I am .iIm) gratt'Eil, and to the trustees of
■the ‘Advocates' Libiary m EdmlangJi, now the owners’ of
the early Stevenson letters to Mrs. Sitwell.

In atldition to llie letters which ( olvin preserved with
the idea that they might some day he published wht»lly or
in part, he had from time to time given t xaniples to the
collection of autographs in' the Fit/william Museum at
Cambridgt', ol wluch h(> was for some jears Director. From
such of these as have not already been published, either in
Colvin’s Memoties and Notes or in th<' biographic.s of their
writers, I have, by kind permission of the present Director,
Mr. Sydney CockcicU, taken extracts, while sevemi arc
pnnted in full.

E. V. L.

June, fgsS

CONTENTS

CII*P. PACK

I. BoYHftOD AND CAMBRIDGE — 1845-1866 . . I

11. LuNiioN, Art Criticism and Art Teaching —

1860-1873 .... 13

in. Edward IUirne-Jones and D. G. Rossetti —

1867 AND ON . . . . .32

IV. John Morley and George Euor — 1870-1873 . 47

V. Mrs. Sitwell (afterwards Lady Colvin) and

THE FkTHKRSTONHAUGH FAMILY . 53

VI. Mr-s. SnwELi. AND R. L. Stevenson: I — 1873 . 66

VII. Gladstonh, Gambetta, Hugo, Sir Charles

Newton, and Trelawny — 1873-1876 . • . 72

vi.n. Mrs. Sitwell and R. L. Stevenson: II — 1874-1875 83

IX. The Fitzwilliam RIuseum and Robert Browning

— 1876-1880 . . . . .96

X. .W. E. Henley— -1879-1881 . . .106

XI. Landor in the ‘English Men of Letters

Series’— i8&mS82 . . . .134

xiL Mrs. R. L. Stevenson’s Lexters: 1-1881-1887. 148

xm. The Print Room and the First Book on Keats

— 18S4-1887 ..... iSo

XIV. George Meredith— 188s and oh . . 201

vii

viii THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

»

CHAP

XV. Mrs. R. L. Stevenson’s Letters • II — The South
Seas, 1887-1892 . . . ^ .

XVI. Colvin as Stevenson’s London Representative
— 1887-1894 . . . . .

XVII Stevenson’s Death ; the Vailima Letters, Weir
OF JETermiston, and the Correspondence — 1894-
1899 . . * . .

xvni. Mrs. R. L. Stevenson’s Letters. Ill — After
Stevenson’s Death — 1894-1900

XIX. Henry James — 1885-1911 ....

XX Marriage and Retirement — 1903-19 12 .

XXI. Joseph Conrad — 1904-1924

XXII. The Life of Keats and Memories and Notes —

1917-1921 ....

xxin. ‘Famous Voices’ — 1923 . . . .

XXIV. Tributes to Lady Colvin — 1924
XXV. The End — 1924-1927 ....

Index .......

PAGE

232

238

256

267

286

302

312

332

337

343

355

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Sir Sidney Colvin . . . Frontispiece

PACING PAGE

The Grove, Bealings ..... 4

(Photo H. Weliofit WooH^ge)

Sir Sidney Colvin’s Mother .... 8

Sir Sidney Colvin’s Father . . . .18

Edward Burne-Jones ..... 34

(Photo B, Scott Sons, Carlisle)

John Ruskin and Dante GABRiEt Rossetti . . 44

(Photo : Press Portrait Bureau)

John Morley ...... 48

(Photo: London Electrotype Agenipfy •

Mrs. Sitwell, afterwards Lady Colvin . . 54

CocKFiELD Rectory, Suffolk . . . .68

(By permission of Eev* Canon i?. Hilt)

•m

Gambetta Memorial ..... 76

(Photo: Girandon)

#

Sir Charles Newton ..... 78

(Photo * London Electrotype Agency)

Edward John Trelawny by D. Lucas (British Museum) So

Robert Browning ..... loo

Photp: Fradelle 6* Young)

X

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

FACING PAGE

W. E. Henley by William Nicholson (Tate Gallery) ii6
.Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson . . • , 150 '

Robert Louis Stevenson by T. Blake Wirgman . 176

Andrew Lang by Sir W B. Richmond . rgS

{Photo Frederick HoUyer)

George Meredith ... . . 204

{Photo Frederick HoUyer)

Robert Louis Stevenson . . . .214

Henry James by John S. Sargent, ]|fA (National Portrait

Gallery) ...... 274

Basil Champneys ..... 290

(Photo • Thomas Fait)

Joseph Conrad ... . . 308

W. P Ker by John Tweed . . , 320

(By permission of the Authorities of University College ^ London)

Sir Sidney Colvin by William Rothenstein . . 328

Mrs. Sitwe«.l, afterwards Lady Colvin . . 340

THE COLVINS AND
THEIR FRIENDS

CHAPTER 1

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGfi
1845-1866

Sidney Colvin was bom at Norwood on June 18, 1845.
His father was Bsissett David Colvin of The Grove, Little
Bealings, in Suffolk. SincSil have no first-hand knowledge
of those distant days and there are no surviving contem-
poraries, I quote Colvin’s own account of his family, boy-
hood and surroimdings from Memories and Notes.

‘ The older one grows — believe the observation is trite,
and in my case it is certainly true — ^the more vividly does
the mind become haunted by its earliest experiences, by
memories of what one suffered and enjoyed and imagined
and did or longed to do as a child and boy. My mother
had a horror of schools for her sons, partly founded, I think,
for she was a good deal of a reader, on fhe notions she had
gathered from Cowper’s Tiroanium. My dear lovSble com-
pliant father tenderly humoured her in all things ; and so
^e three of us, of whom I was by several years the youngest,
were brought up imder tutors at home. By all that I could
ever leam, there was nothing much likeable or promis-
ing ab9ut me whether as boy or hobbledehoy ; certainfy
nothing in th% eyes of the girl-cousins (we had no sisters),
who, tried with httle success to teach me dancing an^ gener-
ally put a polish on me. But at least I was dead keen
always on whatever I was about, although extremely shy
and secret in regard to the things I most cared for. The
home was a country-house three miles from Woodbridge
in East Suffolk, with five hundred acres of land and more of
shooting attached. My father loved the place. Most of

A

2 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

his days were spent in the conduct of his business as partner
in a leading London firm of East India merchants, but in
the intervals he could spare for home his chief refreshment
was to StroU in his gardens or over his acres, or nde on his
big bay gelding. Prince, about the country lanes or in and
out of Woodbn(^e on his duties as a magKtrate.

‘Either as merchants or civil servants my peopld on
both sides of the house had been connected with India for
several generations. My mother’s father, WiUiam Butter-
worth Bayley, whom I remember as a commanding and
withal humorous grand gentleman of the old school, wear-
ing a high black stock and swallow-tail coat, had been
acting governor-general in th5 mterval between Lord
Amherst and Lord William Bentmck, and for many years
after his return was chairman of the board of directors of
the old East India Company. My father’s next younger
brother, John, was in my bo 3 dsh heutenant-govemor
of the North-West Provinces. When the Mutiny came and
threatened rum to our rcLj and all connected with it, I well
remember how my father’s home and country interests
were the sole things which enabled the dear man at moments
to forget his cares — “ my most cruel cares,” as I can stiU
after these sixty and odd years hear his agonized voice one
day callii^ them. Cruel indeed they were, including besides
the prospect of pubhc calamity and private ruin the in-
taisest personal anxieties for beloved kinsfolk exposed to
the horrors of the time. Sometimes the strain woujd end
in relief, as in the case of my cousm James Colvin, cooped
up almost without stores m a hurriedly half-fortified
bungalow at Arrah, with seven or ei^t English and fifty-
odd faithful Sikhs, by a whole horde of Sepoy mutineers
well allied and provided. " There is much in common,”
writes Sir George Trevelyan, “ between Leonidas dressing
his hair before he went forth to his last fight, and young
Colvin lai^lung over his rice and salt, while the bullets
ottered on the wall like hail.” Relief came to this small
garrison almc^t at the last gasp ; but more often the issue

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGE 3

• '

was tragic. A brilliant young sister oi my mother’s, being
with child.' at the time, was forced to ride for her life the
fifty -miles from Shahjehanpore to Bareilly, and never got"
over it. Most harrowing of all, my aforesaid uncle John
Colvin, in his seat of government at Agra, had to bear more
than almost any other among the great civil servants of
the'stress and burden of the time, and died of his task before
the final issue was made sure. He and my father had been
brought up at St. Andrews together and were devotedly
attached ; John was the younger but much the stronger of
the two, and again I can hear my father calling to mind
aloud in his grief, how if any other youngster was bad to
him, “John would alway|!s knock him down — always knock
him down.”

‘ My father’s love of our country home was not shared
by my mother. She had imbibed from the writings of
Ruskin, whom she knew and idolized, an idea that hill or
mountain majesty was a necessary feature of landscape
beauty, and a consequent contempt for such quiet lowland
scenery as that about our home. To make up for what she
held its poverty, she lavished care and money on the beauti-
f 3 dng of the grounds and gardens, matters which appealed
also to my father, so that for their relatively small scale
they came to be among the most admired in ihit cotmtry-
side. She insisted also on a three or four months’ annual
_ change for the whole household, generally to some hired
house m London or its outskirts, occasionally to Devon-
diire. I do not thmk either of my parents at all realized,
readers though they were, the hterary interests and associa-
tions which attached to our neighbouring country and coast.
Cejtainly I was in youth never made to realize than. To
my mother I cannot be grateful enough for one thing : she
set me reading Rob Roy aloud to her when I was eight years
old ; the other Waverleys followed ; and subsequent years
have only deepened and confirmed my delight in the
imaginary world of which I was thus early made free. It
used to be a foolish habit among superfine and ultra-modem

4 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

«

cntics, during part of my life, to pooh-pooh Walter Scott
as no artist, and admiration of him as an obsolete fashion.
Tt is a joy in my old age to see him coimng, among the wiser
even of the youngest, to be fully acknowledged for what he
was, that is, easily the second greatest creator in our lan-
guage since Shakespeare, and for all his careless ways and
long-winded openings an instinctive artist, in crucial scenes
and moments unsurpassed.

‘ Going back upon my own boyish cares and pre-occupa-
tions, I recall in them an odd mixture of the civilized and the
barbarous To the passion for Scott there presently, before
I was fifteen, succeeded a passion for Spenser. Entirely for
myself and without direction, I^ad discovered the Faery
Queene in my father’s library, and insatiably devoured and
set about domg my best to imitate it. Not for the world
would I have let any one into the secret of my absurd
attempts and ambitions, but on summer mornings not long
after dawn, must needs clamber down from my bedroom
window, and go ofi to the stable-shed beyond the home
paddocks, where a beloved little Arab mare was housed,
the gift to me of an old East-Indian general, my godfather,
and in her company alone, nursing her muzde the while,
sit and spin out of my head the stanzas of my poem. The
theme, if 1 remember aright, was one of mythical ancient
Britidi history taken from Spenser himself. But other
and, for aught I can remember, alternate mornings were
spent not less eagerly in visiting, long before the dew was off
the grass, the mght-hnes I had laid the evening before in
the pools of one or the other of our two near brooks to
catch the big silver-beUied eels : hnes barbarously baited,
for the prey would take no other lure, with the unfledged
young of hedgerow birds stolen from the nest. A certain
bandy-legged stable-help, I remember, was my confidant
and instigator in these and divers baser kinds of sport,
among than rat-hunting with a thorough-bred little Dandie
Dinmont terrier bitch who diared her affections equally
between him and me. In other and more avowable pastimes

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGE

5

I suppose a little later, I was equally keen, as in captaining
a village team of cricketers, or tramping the turnips after
partridges, or standing waiting for rocketing pheasants kept
by a neighbouring captain of militia, who, fine sportsman
as he was and looked on his gallant roan Silverlocks, had a
somfewhat ungrateful task in what was essentially not a
hunting but a shooting coimtry. A clumsy horseman and
an indifferent shot, nothing could exceed the zest with
which I pursued these commonplace country sports, unless
it were that with which in the same years (say from twelve
to seventeen) I used to devour my Scott and Shakespeare,
and Faery Queens and Modern Painters and Stones of Vemce
. . . and learn long screeds of them, both verse and prose,
by heart. These relatively high-flown literary tastes did
not at aU debar me from delighting in Marryat and Mayne
Reid and Fenimore Cooper, and planning for m3rself under
their mspiration futures of the wildest adventure.

‘ In the same years I was getting some formal education
under an elderly tutor, who neither by age nor disposition
was any sort of friend or companion. But he must have
been as capable as he was remarkable for his dyed whiskers
and corpulent figure and choleric temper ; seeing that when
the time came for going to Cambridge I found to my surprise
that I was as well on almost in the classics as picked lads
from the pubhc schools, and in modem languages much
better.’

In due course Colvin passed on to Cambridge, to Trinity,
taking with him not only a considerable store of classical
learning, but a passion for the writings and personality of
Ruskin. ‘ From very tender years,’ he writes in Memories
and Notes, ‘ I used to be , taken from tune to time to visit
the Ruskins in Jheir family abode on Denmark HiU. But
from these earliest days I retain less recollection of the great
man himself than of his mother. Stem old Calvinist as she
wa§, hnd more than Spartan as had been her upbringing of
her own son, she chose to make something of a pet of me. I
havemow before rhe a copy, with its diiay 'yeUbw boards all

6

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

rubbed and dingy, of her son’s tale for children. The King
of the Golden River, with Richard Doyle’s illustrations,
which she gave me in 1852, when I was just short of seven
years old, and which my governess helped me to adorn on
the back of the frontispiece with a grateful inscription, set
in an ornamental border of crimson lake and cobalt! A
little later, I remember — at least I hope it was a little later
— she used to regale me on each visit with a glass of fine
sherry (the house of Ruskin, Telfer and Domecq were great
sherry merchants) and a slice of plum cake. It was not
until my ninth year that I was taken with my two elder
brothers expressly to see the great man himself and be
admitted to his own room.

‘ He received us raw boys with extraordinary kindness,
and one thing, I remember, instantaneously delighted us.
This was a scene between him and his white Spitz •terrier
Wisie (I think there is mention of Wisie somewhere in
Praeterita). The dog burst into the drawing-room just
after we had arrived, and not havmg seen his master for
some time leapt and capered and yelped and fumed about
and over him as he sat, with a passion, almost a frenzy, of
pent-up affection, and was caressed with little less eager-
ness in return. Ruskin then took us up to his worMug-
rodm, and by way of giving us a practical drawing-lesson,

■ made before our eyes a sketch in body-colours of one comer
of the room, with its curtain, wait-paper and furniture — ^aU of
them of a type which to the altered taste of the next genera-
tion would have seemed too Philistine and early Victorian
to be endured. For very many years I'had that sketch by
me, but fear that in one or another of toy various changes
of domidle it has now ^t lost beyond recovery. During
the next few years such visits and lessons were several
times repeated. But the Turners on the walls and their
owher’a kind endeavours to inter^t nae in them, used stUl,
I fear, to make less impression upon me tituin the slice of
cake and glass of sherry with which the old lady never
failed to r^de me.

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGE 7

‘ This for the first four or five years ; hut before I was
fifteen I had become intensely sensitive both to the m^net>
ism of Ruskin's personality and to the power and beauty
of his writings. No man had about him more — ^few can
ever have had so much — of the atmosphere and effluence of
genius, and when he came into the room I used consciously
to thrill to his presence. In those years, a little before and
after the fortieth of his age, he was elegant after the fashion
of his time, as well as impressive in a fashion all his own.
There remains with me quite unfaded the image of his
slender, shghtly stooping figure clad in the invariable dark
blue frock coat and bright blue neck-tie ; of his small head
with its strongly marked features, its sweep of thick brown
hair and closely trimmed side-whiskers ; above aU, of the
singular bitter-sweet expression of his mouth (due partly,
as I have always understood, to the vestiges of a scar left
on the upper lip by a dog’s bite in boyhood) and of the
intense weight and penetration of his glance as he fixed his
deep blue eyes upon yours from under the thick budiy
prominence of his eyebrows (these were an inheritance from
his father, who had them shaggier and longer than I have
seen on any other man). The warmth and almost caress-
ing courtesy of his welcome were as captivating as its
manner was personal : in shaking hands he would raise the
forearm from the elbow, which he kept close to his side,

^ and bringing the hand down with a full sweep upon yours
would hold you firmly clasped rmtil greetings were over
and talk, which generally turned immediately to teaching,
began.

‘ To such teaching, when it was addressed to myself, I
could naturally, at my age, only listen in adoring acquies-
cence. But what I loved better still was to be allowed, as
occasionally happened, to sit by while he let himself go in
the company of some friend who could meet and draw him
out on equal terms. It was not very often that I saw him,
since my people spent the greater part of each year in our
country home in Suffolk ; but for two or three ytears he was

8 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

«

hardly ever out of my thoughts, except during the hours
when they were quite engrossed by those rough outdoor
sports of hare-hunting, pheasant-shooting, village cricket
and the like, of which I have already spoken. The fifth
volmne of Modern Painters, which appeared when I was
in my sixteenth year, was a gospel which for a while I pored
over incessantly, and held incomparable for insight and
wisdom and eloquence ; and by it I was led to an equally
passionate study of the SevTen Lamps, the Stones of Venice,
and the rest of the early works on art.'

‘ I believe,' said Colvin, in his speech at the banquet
given to him on his retirement from the British Museum
in 1912, ' I believe I cherished about this time the swollen
idea that I might become something like a Ruskin and a
Matthew Arnold rolled into one — ^Ruskin, the idol of my
boyhood, Arnold, a great stimulus of my undergraduate
days ; only a Ruskin, so I fondly thought, without his ex-
travagances and lack of balance and an Arnold without his
superior airs and graces : as though the twists or flaws of
genius were not ever vitally inwoven with its strength, or
as though a balanced Ruskin or an unsuperior Arnold were
a thinkable being.'

In the tripos Colvin was placed next to Sir Frederick
Pollock. He won the Chancellor's Gold Medal for a poem
on Florence, which I have not seen ; nor among all his
papers do I find a'-line of verse— with one exception, to
which we shall come later.

To Mr. Basil Champne37s, now [1928] in his eighty-seventh
year, I am indebted for some reminiscences of (xilvin as
an <qij;fegraduate and in his early London days. * My
acqt^^iAance with Sidney Colvin,’ Mr. Champneys writes,
‘ dates from 1861, and as I was with him shortly before his
death in *927, I can reckon sixty-six years of friendship.
An elder brother of ^ was my contemporary at Trinity,
Cambridge, and introduced me to his family circle. They
invited, me to. Littfe Bealings, Sidney Colvin’s early home,
about Fbidi T hSfVe pleasant recollections — of a quiet

SIR SIDNEY COLVIN’S MOTHER

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGE 9

country life, diversified by long drives to interesting scenes
and places, and occasional runs with the local harriers. (It
is worth noting by those who knew Sidney Colvin only as a
sedentary student that he was an accomplished rider.) I
was a frequent guest at Little Bealings for the next year
or two, and in 1863 Sidney Colvin came up to Trinity, where
I w'as entering on my fourth year. I was able, during the
few months for which we were together, to introduce him
to some of my seniors and contemporaries, and specially
recall a dinner in my rooms at which he was present, with
H. Sidgwick, already a Fellow, J. H. Swainson, afterwards
a Fellow, and John Burnell Pam, who later was a fellow-
contributor with Sidney Colvin to the Pall Mall Gazette,
then edited by John Morley ; and doubtless there were
others whose names I have forgotten.'

Later in the same speech from which I have already
quoted, Colvin spoke thus felicitously of some of the great
Cambridge luminaries of his time : ‘ Of Henry Sidgwick
the philosopher, with his almost over-subtly posed im-
partiality of wisdom, his helpfulness, his smile, exquisitely
kmd even in irony, his hesitating speech that was happier
than eloquence : of Jebb, the incomparable Hellenist, in
whose character firm authority and sagacity, and the most
engaging vein of pla3?fulness among his intimates, were
interwoven with a strain of sensitiveness almost too acute
for the uses of life : of that gracious, capricious, provoking,
but to some of us infinitely attaching and attractive lover
of art, Italy, and beauty, George Howard, with whose death
last year [1911] a great piece of my own early life seems to
have been broken away : of Felix Cobbold„ s^olar, banker,
humorist, sentimentalist, politician, and prince of country-
house hosts, whose guests we shall never be again in that
ideal library and garden of his on the Suffolk shore : of
Henry Butcher, Jebb's all but equal in scholarship, the
ablest of teachers and administrators, the most chamur^
and most chivalrous of Irish gentlemen: of Verrall, the
flame of whose iutellect, unextingrafahable ly bodily pain

10

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

and disablement, cast to the end so vivid, so ■wa3rward, so
stimulating an iUnmination on so many matters of litera-
ture and learning.’

Colvin returned to early Cambridge names in the
dedication of Memories and Notes to his wife in 1921. He
would have liked, he says, to have written about other-per-
sonalities no longer living : ' such as those two succe^ive
masters and stately figure-heads of my own college in my
early days, Whewell and Thompson ; such as the famous
classical coach Shilleto, whom I can still see in my mind's
eye, at his table littered with snuff-boxes and bandana
handkerchiefs — still hear while he pounds into my sense
the stiffest meamngs of Thucydides; or such again as
J. W. Clark, equally keen and accomplished in the pursuits
of natural history and architectural history and amateur
stage-craft ; or those two fine contrasted t3q)es of classical
scholar and public orator, W. G Clark, the most frankly
urbane and straightforwardly courteous of men, and Jebb,
probably the most faultless Grecian of them all, whose
tensely stnmg nature and ever-tingling nerves did not
prevent him from being a successful man of the world and
fine representative of his university in Parliament ’

It IS odd that neither in the speech nor the dedication was
there any mention of Aldis Wright, who to many visitors
to Cambridge, myself included, stood for Trinity, even more
than the urbane Master himself. When however Aldis Wright
died, fuU of years, in 1914, Colvin wrote for the Journal of
Philology a little^' Pei^onal Appreciation,' which ran thus :
‘ It IS just half a century since, as an undergraduate of
Trinity, I beg^ to take in the successive volumes of the
great Cair\bridge Shakespeare edited by W. G. Clark in
association (aifter the first volume) with the vigorous scholar
. whose loss we have had lately to deplore, William Aldis
Wright. Clark was then a tutor of the College, the most
accomplished and urbane of dons and men, whose word of
encouragement or admonition to an undergraduate of a
literary turn was a t&ng prized beyond gold. With him,

BOYHOOD AND CAMBRIDGE

II

•

though I was not his pupil, I had had before my degree the
good luck ’to come more than once into admiring contact.
But his colleague in the Shakespeare work (and afterwards
in the editorship of this Journal), Aldis Wright, was in
those days a much more secluded personage, and to the
avetage undergraduate even unknown. Once on the fotm-
dation, mdeed, one could scarcely fail to come in contact
with him in his capacity of College librarian ; and to consult
him was to learn how much zeU. in labour and promptness
m help could go together with how strict a reserve and
brevity in manner and accost.

‘ From that day until all but yesterday, Aldis Wright
stood in my mind, hs m the minds of so many of us, as a
typical, established, abiding personality in the college life,
a personality that was in itself an institution Probably
this impression may have been strongest on those who, like
myself, have held a variable relation to that life, for con-
siderable periods intimate, and then, through pressure of
circumstance, for longer periods much more detached and
casual than we should have wished. For whatever stay,
prolonged or fleetmg, we might come back, there for a cer-
tainty would be Aldis Wright ; ph3raically, after he once
turned iron-grey, more unchanging than almost any man,
filling with exact diligence for a quarter , of a century the
office of semor bursar, for twenty-six years exercising a
courteous hospitality as Vice-Master, and working aU the
while, we knew, with unshakable tenacity of toil at a sur-
prising diversity of subjects. There was somethu^ about
his bodily presence that accurately bespoke and corresponded'
to the Aaracter of his mind; something set, austerely
square-cut and vigorously compact, with a manner plain
and self-sufficing which invited no intimacy. But his aus-
terity was largely on the surface, and even on the surface was
largely tempered with humour : humour grim and sardonic
enough, no doubt, in dealing with an3rthing that struck him
as cant or flummery or affectation, but very kindly towards
those who moved him to liking or respect. The square and

12

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

*

solid sense of fun that was in him was seen at its best, I have
been told and can well believe, in contrast with 'and enjoy-
ment of the whimsicality and charm of a humorist of a
much airier type, the late Canon Ainger.

‘ Of whole fields of Wright’s work in criticism and research
I have no capacity to speak. But aU of us who love letters
can in some measure discern and appreciate the qualities of
rigid exactness and common sense, the steadfastness of
true zeal and scorn of gush'or pretension, which mark and
render invaluable his work on the text of Shakespeare and
Milton, on Bacon, and in the preparation of the great
edition of Burton which he did not live to complete. Grate-
ful, too, we can and should all be for the sjmpathy which
attached this man of few intimacies in bonds of almost
filial affection to a spirit of a stamp most dissimilar to his
own — ^a brother East-Anglian, it is true, but an East-
Anglian of Irish blood and name — I mean of course Edward
FitzGerald. As a Suffolk-bred boy myself, I was used con-
stantly to encoimter and, I fear, imknowmg all he was,
inwardly to dende that eccentnc, ineffectual recluse of
genius (remember his own name for himself, Ballyblunder),
as he strolled or rather vaguely drifted, an odd, rumpled,
melancholy-looking figure in grey plaid, green eye-shade,
and shabby back-tilted hat, along the lanes and highways
of the Woodbridge neighbourhood Certainly no greater
apparent contrast could have been found than between him .
and that modd of purposeful and business-like efficiency in
life and learning, Aldis Wright, in whom he found so service-
able a friend and so faithful an editor.’

CHAPTER II

LONDON, ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING
1869-1873

On leaving Cambridge Colvin settled in London to devote
himself to the study of the Fine Arts, ancient and modem,
theoretical and practical. He also did whatever art
criticisms and reviewing came his way, for the Pall Mall
Gazette and the Globe, and quickly carried enough weight
to be allowed by John Morley, in 1867, to siun up the state
of Englidi painting in that year for the readers of tiae
Fortnightl/y Review. This is the earliest article that I can
find, and it is interesting in reading it to see how trae to his
youthful creed the vmter remamed to the end. He had not
changed his gods sixty years later His belief, which his
own special poet, Keats, had more than once enunciated,
was always that beauty is truth and that the artist’s only
concern is to pursue and capture it. The most promising
hope for Enghsh painting in 1867 he found in the work of
.Mbert Moore, Rossetti, Bume Jones, Watts, Arthur Hughes,
and George Mason.

I quote a passage on Whistler : ‘ Mr Whistler is another
artist who aims at beauty without realism. No artist's
works more completely mjstify the average spectator than
his. . Everyone can perceive his n^lect of form, his contempt
of executive finish, the apparently slurring method by which
he achieves exactly as much as he wi^es, and attempts
no more ; but not everyone can perceive in what his real
strength lies, his perfect mastery of the rapports of tone,
and of what Mr. Rossetti calls the “delicate aberrances
and intricate haphazards of colour.” These, and these

M

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

14

alone, are what he attempts to seize, whether in his grey
and brown studies of shore and harbour or his brilliant
and harmonious compositions of Japanese decorative
colour. That these are artistic successes after their kind
is undeniable ; but it may fairly be urged that as pictures,
as idealisations of fact, they lose value by their exclusive-
ness of aim and one-sidedness of treatment.'

Colvin’s first publication appeared in 1869 through
the house of Macmillan, which in 1917 was to issue his large
book on Keats. The publication was only a pamphlet
containing Colvin’s notes, printed first in the Globe, on the
chief exhibitors at the Royal Academy and the old Water-
Colour Society, and now extended His favourite painters
at Burlington House were Millais, George Mason, Frederick
Walker, Albert Moore, and Legros Among the artists in
water-colour only one really fired him : Edward Burne-
Jones, or Mr. E. B. Jones, as he figured in the catalogue

Among the exhibitors at the Royal Academy Colvin was
best pleased by Albert Moore, and wrote thus : ' The
QuavteU . a Painter’s Tnbute to the Art of Music. “ Le
gofit des anciens,” wrote M. ViUemain, “ est une sjmpathie,
une disposition de I’fime, bien plus qu’il n’est une Erudition,
une doctrme.” Mr. A Moore, I think, possesses, above
any other artist of our time, an inborn Greekness; he
possesses this sympathy, this disposition of the soul, this
affinity with the ancients that comes by nature and not Ijy
learning. His work does really breathe some of the spirit
of the great Greek times. In the drawing of the human
body he can me through the subtlest accuracy into the
most ideal beauty. He can design his figures with a large
grace and a pure nobility, and can group them oij his
canvas in lovely and harmonious relations with one another.’

When some years later Colvin gave W. E. Henley an
introduction to Albert Moore, for an interview, ‘ You will
find,’ he wrote, ‘ a person resembling in looks and manner
a dissipated beau of the working classes ; but a very in-
teresting artist.*

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 15
•

I quote also the Ghhe note on Frederick Walker : ‘ The Old
Gcde. Mr, Walker shares with Mr. Mason the gift of making
every-day modem folks look artistically beautiful. We
said that Mr. Mason’s girls were beautiful m the same sense
as any Oread or Bacchant might be beautiful ; and similarly
this navvy with the pipe might be likened to an athlete or
an Apollo. This sounds like h37perbole, but the true test
of artistic affimties is the quality of the emotion produced
in the spectator ; and, judged by this test, a scrap of a boy
or girl by Mr. Walker comes nearer, in its humble way, to
the ideal of Pheidias or Raphael than many an academic
piece in the great style by painters bent upon t^e sublime.
To have effected this is to have solved perhaps the chief
problem of modem art.’

Later in 1869 Colvin seems to have gone over to the Pall
Mall Gazette, then edited by Frederick Greenwood, his first
considerable task being to pass in review the Old Masters
assembled at Burlington House m January of 1870. These
critical notes he again revised for private circulation.
I am tempted, as illustrating the precision and distinction
of his style even at that time, and the catholicity of his
interests, to quote certain of his remarks on the Dutch
painters, on Velasquez, and on Re57nolds and Gainsborough.

Here are the Dutch ; ‘ The Marquis of Bute contributes
a large and admirable Cuyp, showing us a scene upon the
Maas — of course a scene of diffused summer light and calm
water. In speaking of Rembrandt, I alluded to his vehement
Landscape as being of the generalized and pre-scientific
kind ; and, in speakmg of this other and serene class of
Dutch Landscape, we must bear the same epithets in mind.
There were plenty of things even in the monotonous Nature
about them which these Dutchmen did not, could not, or
would not see. They had not a fine eye for the geological
conformation of the ground, nor for the botanical character
of trees and plants, nor for the fine distinctions of things
in general ; they were not very keenly alive to any beauty
of form, to any impression of Dignity or Grandeur. But

i6 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

they could take in the effect of warm and sleepy summer
afternoons lull of faint mist and steeped in quiet light;
they could abstract from the Nature in which they lived
all phsenomena disturbing to this effect, and reproduce the
effect so left quite honestly and almost perfectly both to
the eye and the imagination Thus, in making truly an
appeal (such as it is) to the imagination, in recalling and
reviving a certain class of Landscape pleasures, imperfect
Pictures like these still properly fulfil the proper end of
Pictures. . . A modem Artist might see much more

beauty in a cow than Paul Potter has seen, and much more
also in sunlighted grass and willows ; he might draw them
more accurately and paint them more trathfully ; but he
would not succeed in subduing and fusing them so simply
into this pleasant musical unity, that makes its humble
appeal to the imagination quite successfully, and,, in so
far as it goes, is a true Picture, having m it that which is
the essence of Fine Art.'

Of the Spaniard : ‘ To describe or analyse the excellence
of Velasquez' work is in truth impossible. What is it except
an indescribable and indecipherable mstinct obeyed, as we
have said, by the hand of a technical Magician, that can
make such an amazing effect of air, life, and colour with
the red walls and buildings of this court-yard, the black-
dressed attendants, the horse, and the Boy with his hat and
feather ? So again, in the case of the weE-lmown sketch ' ' La^
Menifias,” lent by Mrs. Bankes. Here we have an almost
absolute truth of interior colour, light, space, and an equally
striking truth and naturalness of portrait suggestion, attained
by means that defy detection or imitation. Could any
Realist, no matter how laborious, approach the qtter
reality of the large canvas and easel, as seen from behind
in this sketch ; or could any Portrait-painter get more of
character and dignity into his most finished work than
Velasquez has got into this rough indication of himself ? '

And finally Sir Joshua and his great rival: ‘Beside
the inexhaustible variety and nevex-sweiving Jranchise of

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 17

Reynolds, Gainsborough seems to me a little artificial, a
little monotonous in his habit of reducing the faces of all
his sitters towards a certain t37pe — a certain refined con-
vention, as I have said, in expression and character. There
are certain dimplings about the comers of the mouth,
expressive of urbane vivacity and arch sweetness, which
all Gainsborough’s subjects possess with remarkable uni-
formity — delicate tricks and artifices of a Master of Genius,
whidi seem to have prepared the way for the coarser artifices
of a Master without Gemus, to have been the first step
towards that mechanical, fictitious, and aiSicting character
of “honeyed blandness mmgled with alert intelligence,”
which George Eliot has somewhere so justly signalized in
the Portraits most popular with the generation next after
Gatnsborough — ^the Portraits of Sir Thomas Lawrence .’ —
There is some very good writing here, when the author was
only twenty-four , nor did he better it : he began almost
fully armed. Indeed, he seems always to have had aU the
requirements of what Matthew Arnold called a ‘ serviceable
prose style,’ and never failed to add to them dignity and a
sense of responsibility for every word.

To this chapter it is convenient to add a few further
examples of Colvin’s early art criticism, although they are
not strictly chronological. In 1871 he was a contnbutor
to a miscellany entitled En^ish Raintevs of the Present Day,
published by Seeley, Jackson and Halliday. Colvin wrote
upon Poynter (who in 1897 was to pamt his portrait),
Burne-Jones, Simeon Solomon, Frederick Walker and Ford
Madox Brown. A second series appeared in 1872, when
Colvin dealt with Millais, George Mason, Thomas Armstrong
and G. H. Boughton, the American. I quote a little:
‘ An^ so Mr. Mill ais goes on, and will go on — a strong,
insular, independent gemus, working by the light of his
nature; alternately, and with imaccountable vidsatudes,
delightiE^ or dismaying us, but always exciting and arous-
ing; with Ms manual power confirmed into a gift more
unapproachable than ever, but put forth, it seems, only

B

i8 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

with caprice, and as he chooses ; when dnd where he ch<^oses
achieving no less than miracles ; and only f^ing short,
as to the material part of his art, in that last gift by which
the matter of paintmg, over and above all miracle of imita-
tion, is refined, modified, modulated, iuto the rhythmic
and sonorous harmony by which art at its highest can
soothe and exalt the innermost places of the imagination.’

In 1871 Colvm was contributing regularly and with
weight to the Portfolio, a new artistic periodical founded by
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, and it was no doubt the position
which he was taking as an arbiter of taste which procured
him, in that year, Ms election to the Society of Dilettanti,
of wMch from 1891 to 1896 he was to be honorary, secretary.
His friend George Howard, afterwards Earl of Carlisle,
was elected in the same year. When the Hilary of the
Society of Dilettanti came to be prepaxed for private circula-
tion in 1914, it was compiled by Mr Lionel Cust’^and edited
by Colvin. The society can trace its existence informally
as far back as 1732 and formally to 1736, when its member-
sMp was forty-six. Its ruling spirit at that time was Sir
Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despencer. In
Colvin’s words, ‘ the Mstory to be narrated in the following
chapters is that of a small private society of gentlemen
which for more than a century and a half has exercised an
active influence in matters connected with public taste
and the fine arts in tMs country, and whose enterprise in the
^ecial field of classical excavation and research has earned
the grateful recognition of scholars and the cultivated
public throughout Europe. There may be persons, outside
the limited circle of its members, who wfll feel some surprise
on learning that such a society exists ; that it was founded
in the early years of the reign of George n. ; and' has
maintaiaed its existence with an unbroken record up to*
the present day. This fact is the more remarkable, since,
although the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries
are actually older in point of date, the Society of Dilettanti
was not formed, as these were, with any definite intention

BASSEIT DAVID COLVIN

FATHER OF SIR SIDNEY COLVIN

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 19

of promoting the cause of either science or art, hut simply,
in the first instance, for the purposes of social and convivial
intercourse/

The presiding Dilettante when Colvin was elected was
Charles Newton, afterwards Sir Charles, of the British
Museum, of whom we axe to see more as this record
advances. Colvin resigned in 1896, and in 1897 his portrait
by Poynter was added to the Society’s collection, now
preserved in the St. James’s Club. It is not good.

In November 1871 Colvin’s father died, and was buried
in Little Bealings churchyard. I find Lady Carlisle writing
thus, after the bereavement : ‘ I feel sure that your father’s
death will have harrowed you fearfully, and I know what it
is to watch the long agonizing approach of death. ... It
is very awful to watch this — and I am sure you are much
worn out — but you have the gift from your great tender-
ness of heart of being able to soothe and comfort — ^and
I know you must have been everything to your father and
very very much now to aU those whom you love and to
whom you know so well how to give sympathy and thought-
ful tenderness.

‘ I am glad dear Mrs. SitweU [the earliest reference to this
lady] is weU — It will seem strange to you that the look and
mood of her’s I like best to recall is her merry and loving
laugh — She does not seem one of those persons made to
be sad or morbid — and there is a rare charm about her
jbyousness which must make it aU the more terrible for
those who love her to see her clouded life — ^Ramsgate must
be very odious— but if she only keeps well I suppose you
win be satisfied — I caimot tell you how sorry I am you are
not coming to us, nor how eagerly we have looked for a
letter from you saying "I am coming” — everything is
beautiful as ever in this glorious Italy.'

From Lady Carlisle, to Colvin, in. August 1872 : ‘ I
cannot bear to think of your losing that lovely liome of
yonr's— for one cKngs so passionately to one’s country
home and you and yr. father had cared for it so much— X

20

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

know it must have been a heavy pang to let it go and to
look yr. last at its beautiful flowers. In this I feel very
much for you. But heavier troubles have no doubt made
this one seem almost slight. . . . What a very dear and
delightful letter you wrote to me. You don’t know how
glad I was to get it — Of course I knew you had not for-
gotten us, any more than we had forgotten you. You are so
often in my thoughts and I wish so very much to see you
here and renew old memories of pleasant days spent here
with you. ... I have read yr. article on V. Hugo and
cannot express how much I enjoyed it. Surely it is admir-
able in every way, excellent in style, perfectly dear tho’
profound in matter and absorbingly interesting — I was
delighted — How beautiful are those extracts f. the poem.
I should like to read more of the fine chapters without
going through the declamation against the Germans. . . .'

After his father’s death The Grove had to be given up,
chiefly for financial reasons but also because Mrs. Colvin
preferred moving about to keeping a stationary home.
The Victor Hugo article was the review of L’ Annie terrible,
reprinted in part m Memories and Notes.

In another article in the PaU Mall Gazette in 1872 we find
Colvin catholic enough to embrace Degas : ' The danger of
the sort of work, as it appears to us, as it was the danger
of the partly kindred work of Mr. Mason among ourselves,
is that of failing to get digmty and- pathos free from affecta-
tion. We think M. Millet is generally clear enough of that
danger; But there is a school of young French painters so
determined, both on instinct and pnuciple, to keep absolutely
dear of it, that they will not allow themselves the least
attempt at ideal pathos or dignity. And then, if they are
to avoid commoimess, it must be by extraordinary alertness
of their perceptions as to common and unideal fact. That
is just what M, Degas exhibits, and in a really amazing
degree. It is impossible to exaggerate the subtlety of
exact perception, and the felicitous touch in expressing
it, which reveal themselves in his little picture of ballet-

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING

21

girls training beneath the eye of the ballet-master, and his
other picturfe of a bourgeois family in an open carriage at
the races — ^the father on the box, within the mother watching
her baby in the arms of its wet-nurse. Without the slightest
pretension, these are both of than real masterpieces, and
especially the former. It is a scheme of various whites,
gauzes and muslins, fluttering round the apartment, and
the ballet-master in white ducks and jacket in the middle ;
and all the httle shifts of indoor light and colour, all the
movements of the girls in rest and strained exercise, ex-
pressed with the most perfect precision of drawing and
delicacy of colour, and without a shadow of a shade of that
sentiment which is ordinarily implied by a picture having
the ballet for its subject.’

In 1872 Colvin collected in book form for Seeley, Jackson
and Halliday his Portfolio papers on Children in Italian and
English Design. I never heard either Colvin or Lady
Colvin refer to this book, nor was there, to my knowledge,
a copy of it on their shelves; but it is charming work,
comparing with much felicity the bambini of Lucca deUa
Robbia, Marc Antonio and Correggio with the infants
depicted in the drawings of Blake, Stothard and Flaxman.
The essay on Blake is particularly happy ; and at that time,
it must be borne in mind, every one had not ‘ the seed.’

The following letter from Edward Burne-Jones refers
to this work :

‘ Lest I should be counted cold and brutal by you for not
acknowledging that sweet baby book, you must know that
I heard you were in Paris and that I must wait till you
came back for congratulating you on it. I widi so you
would make two fat books — a. fat one on Florence and one.
a few pages fatter, on Athens, and gladden one's heart —
isn’t it possible? Hie baby book is perfectly ddightful
and the book of the little woodcuts — ^which I think excellent,
has set me pining for more. Let us some day talk our-
selves crazy about the other book.'

I cannot say what the second book was.

22

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Other Portfolio artides, together with some from the
Fortnightly Review, were collected and issued in 1873 imder
the title A Selection from Occasional Writings on Fine Art.
The book was made up in this way . ' The Mausoleum of
Halikamassos,’ from the Fortnightly ; ‘ The Virgins of
Raphael/ a review of a French book, ‘The History of
Painting in Northern Italy,’ a review of Crowe and
CavalcaseUe, and ‘ The Dream of Poliplulus,’ a review of a
German book, all in the Academy ; ‘ A Nativity,’ by Sandro
Botticelh, from the Portfolio ; ‘ Old Masters at the Royal
Academy,’ and ‘ Italian Masters at the Royal Academy,’
both from the Pall Mall Gazette ; ‘ The Bethnal Green
Museum,’ from the Fortnightly ; and a series of ten urbane
and polished critical notices, entitled ‘ From Rigaud to
Reynolds,’ from the Portfolio. The series comprises Rigaud,
Watteau, Boucher, the predecessors of Hogarth ; Hogarth,
Chardin, Greuze, Vemet, Wilson and Gainsborough. I
cite as a good example of the critic’s sympathies and style
an extract from the article on Chardin ;

‘ But Chardin was very unhke a Dutchman, and com-
pletely onginal in his manner of treating subjects that
may have been partly analogous to theirs. He does not
draw and paint a dead rabbit or bird sedulously, mechani-
cally, microscopically, hair by hair and feather by feather ;
he lays together a few rich and cunning strokes of the
brush that seem to have hardly a meaning when the eye is
dose to them, but grow, as you retire a little, into a faultier
and living representation of the natural object. That is
the proper magic of the brush, that is the true epic manner
in painting, which raises the commonest subject to a level
with the highest, and gives a butcher’s joint by Chardin
a truer pictorial dignity than may belong to a demigod by
Lebnm. It is the ope magic and the one manner whereby
mere dead nature becomes worth painting by itself. For
fruits and mugs and glasses, napkins and table-gear, objects
and implements, Chardin is without a peer. His painting
ni +TiPTrt over and above the satisfection you get from its

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 23
•

perfect forcible likeness to the thing, has its own charm
of marrowy predousness and mdting snccnlence, gives its
own delight the luscious taste of which you can express
not by words, but by relishing noises in the mouth rather.
He is a consummate master of pictorial harmony; and
without any special arrangement of his objects, which may
be merely taken straight from the parlour-table, or the
larder or scullery, makes perfect pictures of them by seeing
and rendering all their subtler, and what one can only call
their nobler, relations of substance, shadow, reflection, and
colour. It may be only a tumbler or a board between two
chestnuts and three walnuts ; or it may be a scarlet doth
covered with the instruments of a band of music ; or it
may be a handsome set-out of grapes, plums, pears, pome-
granates, Sevres china, and bottles and flasks of wine;
or a snipe lying near a sprig of sweet-pea flower ; but there
win always be the same dignified magic of representation ;
a perfect expression of form, figure, and texture, a lovely
colour where nature is lovely, jewelled lights, and caressing
shadows, m which, as in nature, are mixed broken rajre and
harmonious reverberations from all the colours that make
up the group of things before us. Read Mr. Ruskin’s
account of the way in which Veronese paints a jewel;
look at the way in which Chardin paints a peach or grape or
plum, and (to compare small things with great) you will
see that the Frenchman has found out for himself something
like that large manner of the immortals. And, strangely
for a Frenchman, he does it aU without the faintest suspicion
of swagger ; he never says to himself or us how clever he
is, but is as modest in his art as in hfe. Never more than
one picture on his easel at a time ; eveiything done directly
and laboriously from nature ; each little inanimate study
the iU-paid work of almost months ; the essence of the
magic an uncompromising industry and sincerity.

'But for the majority and the untechnical, perpetual
representations of dead objects, however beautifully done,
wiU pall at last ; and it is to his second dass of pictures

24

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

that the great contemporary popularity of Chardin was due.
These represent the honest, modest, uncorrupted, straitened,
but not unrefined household life of the petty French popula-
tion — ^that lower bourgeoisie among whom the simpler
virtues flourished, and in whom lay the strength and heart of
the coming revolution. The homely women go about their
household work, or look after the children at their meals,
or teach them their prayers or graces or lessons ; they wash
or draw water from the phmp, and cook and spin and krdt
and scour, in neat petticoats and great white caps, with
perhaps a quiet daintiness of blue or rose-colour in some
single bow or ribbon on cap or girdle or shoe. An engraver’s
draughtsman sharpens his pencil ; a druggist arranges his
gallipots ; a tavern waiter cleans his clothes ; a nurse brinp
slops and medicine to the bedside ; or again a boy builds a
card house or blows bubbles, or a little girl in tidy cap and
apron plays with a doll or a battledore and shuttlecock, or
a toy windmill, or eats bread and butter It is a world not
of sensual ideals and high-dressed indolence, but of quiet
matter of fact and decent toil for the elder folks, of innocent
reverent behaviour and simple quiet play for the children.
It is not at all brutal, ugly, or besotted, like that grovelling
world of the familiar Dutchmen, but has a pleasant un-
luxurious grace and natural goodness which are its own.’

The reward of Colvin’s imtiring activity as an art critic
and the ardour with which he proclaimed his loyalties mg,y
be said to have come when in 1873 he was elected Slade
Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge. It is amusing to find
that Ruskin, who held the corresponding post at Oxford,
was not in favour of his devotee’s appointment. Colvin
seems to have asked his aid in the matter, for on Novem-
ber 13, 1872, we find Ruskin very decidedly expressing the
opinion that a Slade Professor should be able to draw : —

* My dear Sidney, — I have just got your letter. I do
not suppose I diould have the slightest influence, if I
wished to forward your views— but I would not use any I

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING

25

had in favour of any person not a draughtsman — You may
very prohahiy think I caimot draw mj^elf — ^but I most
assuredly should never have accepted this professorship if
I had not supposed myself a good draughtsman. If you
could send me a fair copy of any of my finished etchings
in Modem Painters, I would give you what voice I had at
once — ^though even then, not without doubt. For I saw
a very clever critique of yours the other day on twelve
different books — all on abstruse subjects. When I was
your age, I believe I was quite impudent enough to have
done such a thing, had I been asked — ^but in that very
presumption, was as unfit as I think you will be for ten
years at least to come, to be a teacher of art in any
general sense.

' I had been at my wits’ end in the confusion of setting up
two new houses and had not seen the book on children yet,
but I hear much good of it and am alwa3re very tridy (as
you may see), however rudely, yours, ,j

‘ My sincere remembrances to yotu mother.’

Ruskin’s insistence upon the Slade Professor being also
an artist is intelligible enough. As a matter of fact, Colvin
could draw a little ; the essay on Finisterre in Memories and
Notes was, on its appearance m Cornhill, illustrated by
quite capable woodcuts after sketches from his hand.

Some little while after Colvin was definitely in the
Professor’s chair Ruskin wrote, in March 1873 : ‘ Many
than k s for the kind terms of your letter. May I hope
that without clashmg with any conviction which you have
at heart — or in any wise cramping your plan of teaching
at Cambridge or impertiaently desiring to interfere with
it, I may yet be permitted to speak to you on the points
reflecting which it seems to me deeply desirable that our
teachings should be in consent with one another.’

It is probable that the appeal was too late, for we find
Colvin writing, in Memories and Notes : ‘ During my

26

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Cambridge years and afterwards, I seemed tmwiUingly to
find, in those parts of his writings which I'was able to
check by my own studies, much misinterpretation of history,
a habit of headlong and unquestioning but often quite
unwarranted inference from the creations of art to the
social conditions lymg behind them, with much impassioned
misreading of the relations of art in general to nature and
to human life ; everywhere the fire of genius, everywhere
the same lovingly, piercingly intense observation of natural
fact ; everywhere the same nobleness of purpose and burn-
ing zeal for human welfare, the same beautiful felicity and
persuasiveness of expression, the same almost unparalleled
combination of utter sincerity with infinite rhetorical
and dialectical adroitness and resource ; but everywhere
also the same dogmatic and prophetic conviction of being
able to set the world right by his own individual insight
and judgment on whatever matters might occupy his mind
and heart, the same intolerant blindness to all faots and
considerations that might teU against his theories, the
same liability to intermingle passages of illuminating vision
and wisdom with others of petulant, inconsistent, self-
contradictory error and misjudgment. In short, this
demigod of my later boyhood, though stiU remaming an
object of admiring affection and an inestimable source of
stimulation and suggestion, came to count for me no longer
as a leader and teacher to be followed except with reserve
and critical afterthought.

‘ Our terms of intercourse, when intercourse occurred,
continued nevertheless to be those of old family friendship,
and I never found that his personal pr^ence, whether at
public gatherings or in private intercourse, had lost its
power to charm and thrill. One of the instances, I re-
member, when its effect was strongest upon me was at a
lecture of his at the Rojral Institution in which he had
occasion to recite Scott's ballad of Rosabelle. The whole
genius of the man, as all those who remember him will
agree — ^his whole intensity of spiritual and imaginative

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 27

being — ^used to throw itself into and enkindle his recitation
of poetry His voice had a rare plangent and penetrating
quality of its own, not shrill or effeminate and yet not
whoUy virile, which singularly enhanced the effect ; that
evenmg he was at his very best, and for those who heard
him the “ wondrous blaze ” never, I am sure, gleamed on
Roshn’s castled rock and the groves of cavemed Hawthom-
den so magically before or since.’

Among his more eminent pupils as Slade Professor,
Colvin mentioned, in the speech at the banquet in his
honour in 1912, Sir Martin Conway, Mr. Lionel Cust, Mr.
H. J. Ford, Mr. Charles Whibley, and Sir Harry Wilson.
Sir Martin Conway has very kindly provided these pages
with an account of Colvin on the Slade platform. ‘ A Slade
Professor at Cambridge in the seventies,’ he writes, ' can
hardly be said to have had any students. There was no
school, no organised routme. Art-history was not a Univer-
sity subject ; it led to no tripos ; it did not even form the
subordinate part of one. If you were fool enough to take it
up as a serious subject of study you diut yourself off to that
extent from University honours. That was how it looked
to an undergraduate. How did it look to the Professor ?
He had no apparatus, not even a rudimentary collection
of photographs. He had no lecture-room which could be
darkened for the diowing of lantern slides. He had no
serious place in the scheme of University things. He was
a luxury and was intended to be such. His business was
not to teach anybody any definite set of things. He was
there to stimulate, if he could, the taste of the rising
generation, and it did not matter how he did it. Such
was Colvin’s problem when he became Slade Professor at
Cambridge.

‘Away off at Oxford there was Ruskin laying downaesthetic
laws and fuhninatmg against the spirit of the time. He
knew nothing really about art-history, but took the current
attributions for true and the old traditions about bygone
arfets for well founded. What did it matter to him whether

28 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

1-^

such a work was by Carpaccio or not ? he could draw from
it the moral he needed, and that sufficed. ' As he himself
said to me the last time I saw him, “ I don’t believe I
ever really cared about Art What I have always loved
was nature.”

‘ Colvin at Cambridge, thoroughly impregnated as He was
with the Cambridge horror of sentiment and love for fact,
reacted against the method of his Oxford colleague. There
was an anti-Ruskin undercurrent in his lectures. If he
could not teach us the history of art systematically, the
fact being that he did not know it himself, whatever he
did tmdertake to teU diould be the plain facts about things
as discovered or surmised by the latest authorities

‘ His audiences, which he liked to call “ classes,” though
there was nothing of a lecturer’s class about them, consisted
for the most part of adult residents of the place, the wives
and daughters of professors, a lot of junior dons, girls from
Newnham and Girton, and a spnnkling of high-brow under-
graduates. It was rather a large audience, two or three
himdred in number. They were ignorant but they were
eager after “ taste.” It was the time of the aesthetic
craze. Instead of playing up to that, Colvin gave them
solid stuff. One set of a dozen lectures did not lead on to
another. He chose any subject that he could make in-
teresting, and especially that he could illustrate. We each
of us paid a guinea, in return for which we received an
envelope full of photographic reproductions at each lecture.
These illustrations were the catch. He gave us wonderfully
good stuff, for the most part quite off the ordinary lines.
This he managed with great ingenuity. He would write
a set of articles on early engravings for the Portfolio,
illustrated with photogravures, and he would have the
plates reprinted for us, so that we took away in all forty
large-paper prints admirably selected. Only the other
day I saw the staircase of a house in Newcastle hung with
these same Colvin prints suitably framed. I have no doubt
they might be found to-day scattered all over the world.

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 29

Another time it would be Raphael’s drawings, or again
the recent excacvations and discoveries at Ol3nnpia.

‘ There was nothing slipshod about these lectures. He
worked hard at them and read them from his manuscript.
I think the first set of lectures I heard him deliver were
on all sorts of mediaeval "Sevens” — ^the Seven Virtues,
Seven Vices, Seven Liberal Arts, and so forth The subject
enabled him to link together manuscript illuminations,
Florentme pictures, early Italian prints, and the hke. He
opened the mediaeval world to many of us thereby along
a previously unsuspected route. He made no attempt
at eloquence ; he had no impassioned perorations ; he did
not try to move our emotions. He ]ust gave us facts and
left it at that.

' He often said to me that Art was not his chief interest ;
that was- literature Art provided his bread and butter,
first at Cambridge, afterward at the British Museum, but
all* the time he was looking forward to the day when he
could lay it aside and write the life of Keats Within the
category of the formative arts he would have preferred to
devote himself to the sculpture and archaeology of ancient
Greece, but he had no opportunity of laying a thorough
foundation of that kind of itaowledge which was not taught
in Cambridge in his youth. His lectures on the work of
the Germans at Olympia were the nearest he ever came to
this subject. He looked forward to the day when Greek
archaeology would find a place m the Classical Tripos,
and, in his capacity as Director of the Fitzwilliaim Museum,
he prepared the way by forming the nucleus of the collec-
tion of casts of Greek sculpture which has since assumed
considerable proportions.

'Whether he would actually have set himself to fulfil
the functions of a teacher of Greek archaeology when
this Museum was opened I cannot say, for just then he
was called to the Keepership of the British Museum Print-
room, and Waldstein arrived in Cambridge as Reader in
that subject.

30

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Such undergraduates as attended Colvin’s lectures in
any serious spirit were more than kindly treated by him.
He entertamed them to periodic breakfasts in his rooms,
and it was even pathetically evident that he desired to
enter into friendly relations with them Any opportunity
he could find of helping them was eagerly seized.- He
commended them m their foreign wandermgs to the kind-
ness of the learned heads of Museums, and his letters of
introduction were always of more than merely formal
utility.

‘ I am told that he used to say that I was his most serious
pupil. That is probably true. I did not follow the line
of any of his leading interests, but I learnt a great deal
from him, and I owe to his unassuming help many a com-
forting push over an impediment and the opening of many
a door in the way of my hesitating youthful enterprises.
His friendship remained a valued possession to the end of
his life, and is a happy memory which will not fade.’

Sir Martin Conway’s remark about Colvin’s preference
for literature is supported by the walls of the residence m
the Museum and the house in Palace Gardens Terrace,
which were those of a platonic lover of painting rather
than a passionate one. During the eighteen years of my
acquaintance with him I can remember him bu5dng only
one work of art — a. drawing of a woman’s head by Augustus
John. His other pictures, dating from an earlier period,
did not number more than a dozen. Conspicuous among
them were two water-colour sketches by Randolph Caldecott,
a water-colour sketch of a Greek island by Leighton, a
typical Alfred Parsons garden, a typical figure by George
Boughton, a little pencil cherub by Burne-Jones, and a
drawing of an Italian piazza by Muirhead Bone : all, I
imagine, votive offerings. This last he bequeathed to the
Fitzwilliam Museum, where it now hangs. In addition
were water-colour portraits of Lady Colvin and Joseph
Conrad by Percy Anderson, which Colvin had commissioned.
All these were in the drawing-room. In the two down-

ART CRITICISM AND ART TEACHING 31

stairs rooms were a miniature of Bassett David Colvm and
photographs of R. L. Stevenson and J. L. Garvin. Among
the very few drawings which Colvin kept in a portfolio
were original pencil portraits of Mrs. SitweU by W. B.
Richmond and Burne-Jones, neither, he used to say,
sufficiently like. The only work of art to which he ever
drew one’s attention was a terra-cotta group by Dalou,
which also was left to the FitzwiUiam.

So much for possessions and the possessive instinct.
When it came to visual and emotional pleasure in painting
or sculpture, Cplvin could be intensely moved and was far
from the academic expositor.

CHAPTER III

EDWARD BURNE-JONES AND D. G, ROSSETTI
1867 AND ON

Mr. Champneys tells me that Colvin, although as a Fellow
of Trimty — elected in 1868 — occupying rooms at Cambridge,
lived now much in London for a while in Arlington Street,
Piccadilly, for a while with Mr. Champneys at Hampstead,
and for a while at Norwood. It was in the Arlington Street
rooms that Mr. Champne};^ remembers Rossetti reading
from his poems ; and this brmgs us to two of the principal
objects of Colvin’s adoration at that time — ^Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.

Returning again to the notes on the Summer Exhibitions
of 1869, I find Colvin rising to his greatest heights of
enthusiasm before a set of allegorical water-colours by
Mr. E. B.- Jones. These are his words : ' Among lovers of
the rarer kinds of imaginative art, Mr. Jones’s reputation
has long been above cavil. His present work ought to set
it above cavil also among the critics and the public. The
sentiment which informs it, from having been somewhat
tender and exotic, is becoming hardier and more robust.
If any spectator finds these things strange, startling,
unaccountable, it is simply because they differ from the
paltry, unbeautiful, every-day art, the art of mere mcident,
whether jocose or pathe|^, to which he has been accustomed.
Let him go to the National Gallery, or to the Elgiu room of
the British Museum, and learn from his heart to appreciate
what he sees there, and he will no longer find Mr. Jones’s
work strange or uncomfortable. Its secret is that it does,
more than ansrthing else produced among us, touch the
82

33

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI
•

same chords and appeal to the same emotions as the great
art, not of any particular time or manner, but of aU times
and all manners. That is why some wise folks find it
“ archaic.” And we may this year see that Mr. Jones is
labouring not in vain to add complete technical efficiency
to that intense poetic charm which his work has always
had, and which, although it does not make his work
“ archaic,” does constitute for him a genuine title to
“ kindred with the great of old.””

This criticism brings us naturally to the painter himself ;
to Colvin’s reminiscences of him and to extracts from the
many letters from E. B.-J. to Colvin and to Mrs. Sitwell.
The two men first met in 1866 or 1867, when Burne-Jones
was thirty-three or so, twelve years Colvin’s senior.

‘ In my own early life,’ Colvin writes, in Memories and
Notes , ' both the zest of public battle on his behalf, and the
pleasure of being often with him m such spare hours as he
could afford his friends of an evening or on Sunday, counted
for very much. . . It was Rossetti who had ordered Burne-

Jones (his advice to his friends was always virtually an
order) to attack at twenty-two the practice of imaginative
and poetic painting without any of the usual prelimmary
training of hand and eye. From this first impulsion, or
compulsion, and from study of the earlier painters of Italy,
together, Burne-Jones drew the impetus which, working in
hfr own intense and intensely personal artistic tempera-
ment,, earned him on, after a few tiying years of derision
•and neglect, through a full career of passionately strenuous
labour to ultimate recognized success.

‘ Of course — and it should need no saying — ^the primary
and essential appeal of every picture must needs be to the
eye, by its harmonies, and rh3rthni^of line and colour, its
balancings and massings and proportions and contrasts
of light and ^ade, and by their direct effa:t upon the visual
emotions. If such appeal and such effect are not forth-
coming, or if they fail, the picture is naught ; but if they
succeed and the picture is a picture indeed, then the more
c

34 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

•

ol mind that can be felt behind it, the richer the associa-
tions and suggestions it conveys, surely the better. Full
as are the gifts of mind to be discerned behind Burne-
Jones’s work, rich as are the imaginative associations it
calls up, it represents only a part of the wealth and colour
of his being. For one thing, notwithstanding aU its beauty,
its felicity and inexhaustible original invention in colour
and linear design, as far as concerns the human types it
depicts it is in the main of a melancholy cast. ... Yet in
company he charmed no less by a rich laughter-loving
gaiety than by his surprising range of knowledge and
attainment and the ease and beauty and simplicity
of language with which he brought them to bear in
conversation.

‘ Modem imaginative literature of the best kind Burne-
Jones possessed in a scarcely less degree than ancient, at
least so much of it as is to be read in English ; his two
chief favourites being (as they are the favourites of every
wise reader) Walter Scott and Dickens. As the books of
Louis Stevenson came out successively he gave them a
place in his affection next almost to these. In Dickens
what Burne-Jones loved especially were the parts most
riotously comic. I can see and hear him now shouting
with laughter as he echoed the choicer utterances of Sam
Weller or Micawber or Mrs. Gamp, his head flung back
and beard in the air (in early days it was the fine forkpd
and flowing red-brown beard depicted in Watts’ well-
known portrait, but later, one grizzled or grizzling and
shorter trimmed). And he was very capable of original
Dickens-Hke observations and inventions of his own. No
one had a quicker or more healthy amused sense, without
sting or ill-nature, of the grotesque and the absurd in ordinary
life. No one loved better to make or had a better gift for
making, by speech or pencil, happy fun and laughter with
his children and grandchildren.’

One or two of Burne-Jones’s letters to Colvin are printed
in Memories and Notes. From a large number of others

EDWARD BURNE-JONES

AT THE AGE OF 4 1

35

BURNE-JONES AND D. G ROSSETTI
•

that lie before me I make extracts. Few of them have
dates, and, as in the reminiscences that have just been
quoted, we advance by degrees far beyond the year 1869.

This is the first : ‘ Morris seemed very pleased with the
Gudrun article, so it must have been a tremendous puff (by
this’time you have found out the poet’s soul, and how easily
it is vexed and how you cannot fathom it) — ^he said he should
write to you at once and express the same — ^but as it is
easier for him to write Gudrun’s than letters you wiU not
wonder at the delay,’

Colvin had reviewed Morris’s EartUy Paradise, Part III.,
in the Pali Mall Gazette ‘ The Lovers of Gudrun ’ will
be found there.

Of William Morris, I might remark here, Colvin has left
no personal record, although he must often have met him ;
but I find a friend both of Burne-Jones and Colvin — Lady
Carlisle — ^writing thus of the poet in 1870 : ‘ Morris arrived
early this morning — ^with such a diminutive carpet-bag —
He was rather shy — and so was I — ^I felt that he was takmg
an experimental plunge amongst " barbarians,” and I was
not sure what would be the resulting opinion in his mind.
However, he has grown more urbane — and even 3 hours has
worked off much of our mutual sh3mess — h walk in the
glen made me know him better and like him more than I
fancied I should. He talks so clearly and seems to think
so clearly that what seems paradox in Webb’s mouth, in
his seems convincing sense. He lacks sympathy and
humanity tho’ — and this is a fearful lack to me— ohty his
character is so fine and massive that one must admire — ^He
is agreeable also — and does not snub me — ^This I imagine
may be attributed to Georgy having said some things in my
favour — Not that I think he wiU like me — ^but if he puts up
with me we shall jog along aU r^ht. . . .

‘ The little Morris girls are dehghtful, and I could tell you
amusing thin^ about the little May who is such a materialist
that die says " the soul is nothing but the imaginary part
of her body ” — ^that there is nothing left but bones after

36 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

death — ^that it is the brain that lives — She has not been
taught these things, simply brought up without theology.’

Webb would be Godfrey Webb, famous for his brilliancy
in conversation. Georgy was Mrs Burne-Jones.

I now resume the extracts from the E. B.-J. letters :

‘ I hated puttmg you off — ^but I never have and never
can and never shall remember about engagements — ^That
comes of not trusting to memory and depending on an
engagement book.’

‘ I will send on your article on Rembrandt to Miss Graham
when I know she is back — ^I read it with real delight and
much was new to me — ^though you know I have to be taken
by the hair of my head to be made to look at him. Still
I want to be just ’

‘ I saw yesterday at Halle’s (ii Mansfield Street), 4 little
volumes of the earliest drawings of Doyle The earliest
and to my thinking the best — ^they are miracles of skill —
I think he never excelled them, and often fell below them —
and I came away amazed. Now the Museum ought to
have them — i vol. is a drawing of a journey to London —
the three others are nondescript fanaes — all are highly
finished in pen and ink and miracles in their way.’

Doyle is Richard — or Dicky — Doyle, the humorous
artist whose most famous work is the cover of Punch. Many
of his most fanciful drawings are preserved in the Irish
National Gallery in Dublin.

‘ I wish it [the summer exodus] were all over and everyone
at work again — ^there ou^t not to be such a place as London
that we have to run away from in disgust and horror — a
nice city ought to be better than the country in summer,
with cool arcades, a fountain and little sheltered gardens —
When I build a dty it shall be like that.’

‘ I do wish the lecture was 2 hours later — I would go to
every one of them — not that I should [not] read them and
know what you say just as well as if I went — ^but that you
might have the cheery comfort of a friendly mug — ’

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI 37

•

‘ I 'm back in town — ^need I add with a brutal cold —
the worst of colds — one that won’t be hurried — ^that takes
3 days to think about it — ^and 3 days to get worse, and
3 days to stand still, and 3 to go away — Cleaving one at
the end utterly dilapidated and doubting the thirty-nine
articles, — ^that’s my case at present and this is the fourth
day only —

‘ I 've been seedy but am getting aU right as usual in
a day — ^the doctor came yesterday and I 'm to grow fat at
once — think it was dissipation, dining out 3 times last
week — so I 'm not to — ^but to stop at home and lie on a
sofa instead — which is nice — ^and gives a pretty prospect
of the coming winter — damn — ’

‘ Photo came — ^thanks — ^fat fat fat little back in a boat —
I shall ^ow it George and it will make him young again
and his eyes will flash — alas for me, the days when fat backs
could have satisfied I spent in thinking of St. Jerome.'

George would be Lord Carlisle

‘ My long holiday is over — took a thorough hohday
this time — no running off and back the next day — ^but I
stayed away like a man — ^like two men. But now I 'm
back I ’m very stupid and always falling asleep, and
gaping and being deaf and as silly as can be.’

T 0 Mrs. Sitwell : ‘ I wasn’t tired — ^at least not very tired —
and I left very early — ^felt a bit shy and screwed m37self into a
little comer and it was fun — ^for some people I liked and
some I loathed and that is always fun and is life — am off
this almost very minute to Rottingdean to see the tenantry
and remit 98I per cent, of rent — ^Young Rottingdean left
early this momS. for the seat of learning, having had a
most brilliant season. I had a little talk of the serious
kind but at the first tear I fled. . . .

‘ To think aitar all I have preached and said and painted
about love that I should come at last to marry a hot bottle —
die brast the other mght and I divorced her at once and
got another.’

38 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Young Rottingdean was his son Philip.

To Mrs. Sitwell : ‘ I cannot tomorrow — ^for I must be in —
I think that every day and every hour someone has made
appointments with me — ^and sometimes I feel half wild :
and I wish more people would go out of London or make
themselves happy without enslaving me — ^to-day I do' feel
half-wild — ^there came 3 yankees at Itmch time suddenly
and killed me — and this isn’t me that ’s writing but the
ghost of me.’

To Mrs. Sitwell . ' Excuse this pencil. I have no ink
an57where except on the floor where it has just gone — . . . .
— how kind you all were to Phil — ^he came back looking
happy and [as] if he had a warm heart for you. He looks
improved for his civilizing visit and it was very good for
him. I hope he will listen when you tell him thhi^.’

‘ [Sidney] told me you were reading John Inglesant
abroad — I am afraid the beginning is the best — ^the story
is venerable criticism eveiywhere but there is a sort of
genius somewhere to the book — I regret I praised it so
unreservedly for you wiU be disappointed and when one
reads a story it isn’t unfair to want it to be a story — and
the characters are nil — ^but some atmosphere of tormented
Christendom is in it, pleasant to scholars. — ^It is written for
Oxford ears, that home of lost causes.’

John Inglesant by J. H. Shorthouse was published in
1881.

In this same year, 1881 , 1 find a delightful letter, illustrated
by comic drawings, from Philip Burne-Jones. I give some
of it for its own sake and also to show that not a little of his
father’s fun was also his. The boy — ^as he was then — ^had
been staying with Mrs. Sitwell, with whose son he had been
at school ; ‘ I wonder whether you would care to hear
about how I am spending the time here ? I don’t think
it would amuse you. In mornings I work and in after-
noons go expeditions — that is briefly what happens.
Rottingdean is a little village miles from Brighton —

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI 39

and so deep down in a valley that as you drive from
the hideous metropolis hard by you never see it until,
so to speak, you are really in it. There is a winduig
street — ^weTe not proud and so we don’t call it High
Street — which runs from the sea at one end of the village
to the chiurch at the other end — our end, where is our
cottage As to shops, they are so arranged as to bewilder
the metropohtan mind. To begin with there is the post
office which sells sweets — yellow ‘ones which I can buy now
without being dependent on the whims and caprice of
Kathey — and eggs and vegetables — and stationery — ^There
is another shop which astounds the passer-by by declaring
itself to be a Tailor’s-^but on close acquaintance the
window proves to be filled with clocks and watches — ^and to
answer in every respect to the descnption of a working
jeweller’s — ^were it not that behind the said watches is a
screen on which is emblazoned “ Trowbridge, Tailor ” — So
that we know that our eyes deceive us, and must never
again suggest the watch trade in connection with " Mr
Trowbridge.” — And so the shops go on — each one adding to
the surprise and dismay of the traveller — It is not unusual
to speak of bu3ring potatoes at the draper’s or again of pur-
chasing mushrooms and fiheirons at the Baker’s — or at all
events that is the impression left upon my mind.

‘ Then at the end of the village is the church — ^which
Mamma at once called “ the little grey church on the windy
iuU ” — ^and I ’m sure Math. Arnold had it in his memory
when he wrote the “ Merman ” — ^It is opposite our house
and the downs slope upwards behind it — and look lovely
against the grey sky as I write. Mr Charles HaI 14 (jun.) is
stajnng here in the village — and is giving me lessons in
oil painting— (portraits). I am at present occupied in
trying to copy the ridiculous face of my little cousin Ambrose
Poynter— whose ideas of the art of sitting are most primitive
— Say I am cop3nng his profile, and look up suddenly, he
meets my gaze with a bland smile — ^full face — and saj^
do you, want, my sidg face.? ” — Andj it ’s, impossible to

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

40

be angry with him because he sits out of mere good nature
and I ’m only too glad to have anyone to copy, however
plain. But there is only one Sitter that I know as yet, who
combines every qualification for that duty — ^and I think
you can guess who that is.

‘ We have been several expeditions from here^— to
Newhaven and other places Yesterday we made a false
start and got the pony carriage we had from the Sun, down
a hill and covered with mud — and nearly broke the wheels
on a pathless hiUside — ^but we came out safe at last and
drove to Brighton instead of going over downs. There is
a most terrible omnibus which phes between Rottmgdean
and Brighton and is the butt of my most withering sarcasm —
imtil I am on it, when I become abject — It is always so
filled with humanity that I wonder anyone arrives whole at
its destination. And the roof is so piled with luggage that
on windy days, when the sea is rough with storm winds and
the breezes blow from the ocean, the “ ’bus ” runs a good
chance of being blown over bodily. And a provincial
omnibus is, if it could be, a more detestable invention than
a London “ ’bus ” Because it does not behave in the
businesslike way, that its London namesakes do — but
goes up turnings and waits for you if you ’re not ready at
your own house, and in other wa3re behaves as an amateur
and fails to inspire confidence.

‘ But why should I send you in the centre of civilization
these uninteresting details of village life ? Here in Boeotia
we live bucoHc lives — ^the great excitement of the day being
the arrival of the omnibus with the mails or the appearance
of a donkey on our village green. Corydon and Amaryllis
are the only inhabitants and we know no one else. My
young cousin goes out with a bottle of poison and a net
to capture living things— butterflies and winged beetles —
and when I remonstrate and suggest that they love srm-
shine as well as he, his reply is that if God did not intend
him to kill butterflies He would in some way prevent it
and that he (Ambrose) is an instrument in God’s hand

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI 41

whereby the ernng* insect is righteously chastized — To
which I can answer nothing — ^and he goes out again
triumphantly with a bottle of poison and a net.’

In 1884, probably, Colvin asked Burne-Jones if he could
name an illustrator for Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses,
and this was the reply •

‘ I know no one who can invent but Crane. — It seems
the last thing one can ever find — ^so much else that is skilful
and delightful but not that. And I think Crane would
enter into it with love ’

Crane was Walter Crane, whom Colvin would of course
remember as the designer of the frontispieces to the Inland
Voyage, 1878, and Travels with a Donkey, 1879.

' Yes, the pohce, as usual, were violent and lied deeply —
but I dread the rows and messes of the future of which this
is only a Ijttle foretaste, and the dear fellow is so bent on
carrjnng through with it, and there wiU be no more poems
ever agam. But I must say the police infuriate me so that
I shall go and help on Simday — ^my blood bods when I
think of them

' And yet, poor ignorant wretches, how should they know ?
Tomorrow then you are in the coimtry, and Friday I can’t,
and Saturday people are here — and on Sunday who knows
if I am not in prison — ^but next week surely w^ be luckier.’

A reference, I think, to the Battle of Trafalgar Square
on November 13, 1887.

To Mrs. Sitwell about the acddental destruction of the
picture ‘ Love among the Ruins ’ in 1893 : ‘ Yes that miser-
able newrs was true — ^the poor thing is entirely destroyed —
I will tell you some day how it happened but at present it
• still makes me sick to talk of it — and I try to forget it — ^not
much chance of that. I may try to do it again one day —
but I cannot make myself young again — ^nor put into what
I do now much of the ancient Spirit. It was a fool who did
it, inspired by a company limited. Next week I shall be
back in London for a little time and I will run across and
see you at ^he end of a day, and, prythee, we won’t even

42

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

mention this mishap — ^for the devil is conceited and likes
to have his works talked of like the rest of us. There is only
one way of hurting his feelings, i.e. not to mention him.

' Sidney has just written me a dear letter —

‘ So have you.’

In Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, by his widow, I
jSnd this passage : ‘ It was in August, 1893, just after he
had recovered from the fit of exhaustion described in his
letter to Lady Leighton,' that a grievous misfortune befell
us in the destruction of his picture of Love in the Ruins.
It had been sent to be reproduced by photogravure in Paris,
where, in spite of a printed warning on the back that it was
painted in water-colour and would be injured by the slightest
moisture, it had been washed over with white of egg or some
such substance, and every part of the surface so touched was
destroyed.’

Of Rossetti, in Memories and Notes, Colvin wrote thus :
' Looking back lately through volumes of the Westminster
Review some half a century old, I found under the date
January 1871 an essay near thirty pages long enthusi-
astically quoting and praising the poetical writings, both
translated and original, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Recog-
nizing the essay for my own, I was freshly reminded of the
fascinated admiration which possessed me in those days,
youngster as I was, for the poet-painter and his work. By
the tune I left Cambridge I already took intense pleasure in
some of his early paintings which I knew in the houses of
friends ; and I held (as I still hold) his renderings from the
early Italian poets, first published in the volume of 1861, to
be unmatched among feats of verse translation for graceful,
unforced fidelity to the spirit and even in most cases to the
letter of the originals. Drawn moreover by the glamour
which invested Rossetti’s personality as the main inspiring
focus and source of impulse whence had sprung all I most
cared for — ^that is, whatever is most imaginative and im-
passioned— in the Englidi art of the time, I asked Btune-
Jones to take me to him ; was kindly received i and saw

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI 43

much of him throughout the years 1868-1872, which were
somewhat critical and fateful years of his life.

‘ I had come into his circle of course too late, and with
the Cambridge stamp and direction too definitely impressed
upon me, to undergo the full dominating force of his influ-
ence such as it had been exercised some dozen years earlier,
when he suddenly determined the careers of men like Burne-
Jones and William Morris, or earlier yet when along with
Holman Hunt and Millais he wa^ a leading spirit in the
original Prse-RaphaeUte movement. The best days of his
life were indeed already over Since the tragic death of his
wife his passionately craving and broodmg nature had been
gradually losmg command over itself

‘ About the surroundings and the way of life so much has
been written that I shall pass them over quickly. The
handsome old red-brick house in a row looking on the Chelsea
reach of the Thames ; the combmed gloom and richness of
its decorations, the sombre hangings, the doors and panel-
lings painted m sombre dark-green sparsely picked out with
red and lighted here and there by a round convex mirror ;
the shelves and cupboards laden with brassware and old
blue Nankm china (in the passion for collecting which
Rossetti was, if I remember rightly, an absolute pioneer) ;
the long green and shady garden at the back, with its un-
canny menagerie of wombat, raccoon, armadillo, kangaroo,
or whatever might be the special pet or pets of the moment ;
the wilful, unconventional, unhealthy habits and hours ;
the rare and reluctant admission of strangers ; all these
things have already been made familiar by repeated descrip-
tions to such readers as are curious about them. So have
the aspect and bearing of the man himself ; his sturdy,
almost burly figure clad in a dark doth suit with the square
jacket cut extra long and deep-pocketed ; his rich brown
hair and lighter brown, shortish, square-trimmed beard,
the olive complexion betraying Italian blood , the handsome
features between spare and flediy, with full, sensual under-
Hp and thoughtful, commanding forehead in which some of

44 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

his friends found a likeness to Shake^ieare ; the deep bar
above the nose and fine blue-grey colour of the eyes behind
their spectacles ; and finally, the round, John-Bullish,
bluntly cordial manner of speech, with a preference for
brief and bluff slang words and phrases which seemed scarce
in keeping with the fame and character of the man- as the
most quintessentially, romantically poetic of painters and
waters.

‘ During the years of our intercourse it was Rossetti’s
poetry more than his painting that interested and impressed
me. His earlier water-colours, those of the Dante cycle
especially, comparatively unambitious in scale and technic
as they were, seemed to me (and still seem) to give by their
fine new inventive colour-harmonies, their passionate in-
tensities of expression and their rare originality and often,
though not always, their beauty of group-composition and
pattern, a more satisfying idea of his genius for painting
than his ambitious oil pictures on the scale of life.

‘ But Rossetti’s poetry, both by its own power and by
the manner in which I learned to know it, for the time being
enthralled me completely. The story is well known how,
in a passion of grief and remorsefulness at the time of his
wife’s death, he had buried the original bundle of his manu-
script poems with her, la 3 dng it in her coffin among the rich
strands of her red-gold hair. Of a few of these buried poems
he had drafts or copies by him, and would sometimes, when
I first knew hhn, read out from them to a small circle of his
intimates. . . . The manuscript poems having been rescued,
and the question of their publication having next to be
considered, Rossetti used on many evenings to read out from
them to a few invited guests after dinner. He was good
enough to care, or seem to care, somewhat specially for my
opinion, and consulted me, both verbally and in many
letters which. I have lately re-read, about the revision of
the poems and the order in which they should stand in
the proposed volume, in the end adopting most of my
suggestions.

JOHN RUSKIN A.ND DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

BURNE-JONES AND D. G. ROSSETTI 45
•

‘ But the readings themselves were among the mariring
events, and remain among the golden memories, of my life.
Most of the poets I have known have had their own special
way of readmg, and it was generally mterestmg or impres-
sive to hear. Rossetti’s way was not dramatic in any
ordinary sense of the word. It was rather a chant, a mono-
tone ; but somehow he was able with little variation of
pitch or inflection to express a surprising range and rich-
ness of emotion. His voice was magical in its mellow beauty
of timbre and quality and m its power to convey the sense
of a whole world of brooding passion and mystery, both
human and elemental, behind the words. A kind of sus-
tained musical drone or hum with which he used to dwell
on and stress and prolong the rhyme-words and sound-
echoes had a profound effect in stirring the senses and
souls of his-hearers. . . .

‘ Rossetti had little or none of Burne-Jones’s fine self-
sufficient indifference to criticism. It is not true, as has
been said, that he took tmdignified pains to ensure that
reviews ^ould be favourable. Swinburne of course for
one, and I for another, were absolutely imsolicited volunteers
in the cause. But when there appeared the late Robert
Buchanan’s preposterous attack upon him, at first pseudony-
mous and then unveiled, in the pamphlet called The Fleshly
School of Poetry, he was both agitated and angered beyond
meSiSure. In t^ matter agam I did my best, together
with a group of other ardent friends and admirers, and this
time by the master’s desire and request, to stand by him
and make things as hot for his assailant as we could. At
the same tithe I succeeded in dissuading him — I had for-
gotten the fact, but am reminded of it by his brother’s
bic^;raphy — ^from printing a satiric effort of his own against
the enemy which struck us as neither dignified nor effective.'

After referring to. Rossetti’s famous Limericks on his
friends, Colvin quotes ihe begianing of one on hiuKelf ;

' There ’S an eminent caiti6 tailed Colvin,

Whose the mind may revolve in.’

46 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Wild horses,’ he adds, ‘ would not drag from me the
sequel ’ ; nor could I, with whatever power of persuasion
I may possess, ever achieve this end.

Colvin mentions that he received from Rossetti a large
number of letters, but I find no trace of them.

CHAPTER IV

JOHN MORLEY AND GEORGE ELIOT
1870-1873

Art study and criticism were only a part of Colvin’s indtistry .
He was also a busy reviewer and a keen conversationalist.
In 1869 he joined the dub now known as the Savile but
then known as the New, and thus came into touch with
some of the most congenial intellects among his contem-
poraries. The New Club had been founded in 1868 and had
its quarters at 9 Spring Gardes. Among the original
members 'were James Bryce, afterwards Lord Bryce, Andrew
Clark, afterwards Stevenson’s physician, G. L. Craik,
Lord Dufienn, Michael Foster the chemist, Auberon
Herbert, Lord Houghton, R. H. Hutton of the Spectator,
Professor Jebb, Stevenson’s fnend Fleeming Jenldn, Norman
Loclg^ the astronomer, F. W. H. Myers, Simeon Solomon,
and Henry Sidgwick of Cambndge. There were also three
chendiable editors ; John Morley, of the FortnighMy
Review, Frederick Greenwood, of the Pail Mall Gazette,
and Ledie Stephen, of the CornhiU Magazine.

In Colvm’s year, 1869, were elected Oscar Browning,
Basil Champneys, W. K. CkSord, Sir WiUiam Vernon
Harcourt, E. Ray Lankester, Walter Pater and Frederick
PoEock. Stevenson was elected in 1874, when the dub’s
name had been changed to the SavEe and its pranises were
at No. 15 SavEe Row. They were afterwards in PiccadEly
and are now in Brook Street.

In 1871 Colvin was made Honorary Secretary. In the
dioing-room hangs his portrait, pamted by Theodore

ts

48 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Roussel in 1908, as a record of his paternal influence
there.

We get some light upon Colvin as a reviewer and cntical
writer from John Motley’s letters, which begin with 1870.
Motley, then in his thirty-second year, seems to have found
in Colvin a trustworthy and versatile supporter. Colvin’s
earliest article that I can find, is that on ‘ English Art in
1867 ’ to which I have referred. Motley’s first letter,
however, bears upon the state of affairs in Europe and not
upon literary contributions. The Franco-German War
was then in full swing ; ‘You might gather from my little
piece in the September Fortnightly, how much I am
with you in protesting against the Piriturist and also the
Odgeiran disparagement of Germany. Such disparage-
ment seems to me equally unworthy of historical philosophers
and practical politicians.

‘The situation is very desperate. If Paris is taken,
Bismarck may ask immoderate things and take them.
If the Prussians are repulsed, wh. seems not impossible,
then France becomes impracticable, and the whole game is
once more open. The only comfort is that there must be a
decisive stroke of some kind or other — decisive for a while —
before the winter sets in, so that the mind of Europe may
receive a little freedom, perhaps enough to discover some
sort of new solution.

‘ Of the two subjects wh. you are kind enough to mention
for the Fortnightly the Albert Memorial is one with wh. I
gladly close, without further adv. As for Byron, I only
wish to say that I have myself in hand an essay on him
— of a very general kind — ^wh. I have some faint notion of
printing in the Fortnightly, before it appears in a volume.’

It was not, however, the Fortnightly but the Pall MM
Gazette that printed Colvin’s views on the Albert Memorial.
Here is one sentence : ‘ The work of the Albert Memorial
ranains one probably of eictraordinary credit to the engineer
and mechanician ; it remains one certainly of extraordinary
and ostentatious costliness in material and ornament ; but

JOHN MORLEY AND GEORGE ELIOT 49

it does not and cannot remain (we speak of it as a whole) a
respectable work of art.’

Colvin meanwhile was thinking about the state of Europe
and the two beUigerent nations in his own way, and in
1870 issued, at a penny, his first published work : A War A for
Germany, from an English Republican, 1870, an open letter to
Professor Beesly. In this document Colvin urged England
to intervene against France. Morley thus refers to it, in
January 1871 ‘What is aH this you say about William
[the Emperor] and Providence ? The devil take Wm. by
all means, if you choose ; but apart from that, I hope you
have not swung round to France. I stick fast by a certain
“word for Germany,” and don’t see that anything has
happened that ought to make one wish ill to the side to
wh you then gave us such good reasons for wishing well.
French republicanism is hollow, wordy, intolerant, and I
at least have no faith in its stability, nor in its virtue, if
it be stable. As I said to Harrison, France is the Marie
Stuart of nations ; lovely, atrocious, delightful, an adulteress,
a murderess, exquisite, and irresistible to ardent young men.
I love French people, and I detest all the German ditto with
whom I have been brought m contact — But . . .’

To Morley’s comments on the French might be appended
a passage from a letter from Ruskin to Colvin in 1872.
Colvin — ^as long ago as that — ^had been championing some
good cause, and Ruskin, with his accustomed liberality,
had acceded to a request for money. He writes : ‘ I send
you the fxoo ; of course good security means the assurance
of any wealthy person that he will pay if the Frenchmen
don’t. — ^In the present case, I will waive such condition
on your testimony to their good French character. Alas,
I had rather now in general trust a French tradesman
than an Engli^.’

To return to 1871, I find Morley writing to Colvin in
February : ‘ Your article on Rossetti in the Westminster is
truly admirable. I read it with the warmest int^est and
ideasure. It is better than Swinburne’s m my own Review,
D

50

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

becatise it is historical and philosophical in its base ; —
because in a word it is true criticism.’ ^

In January 1873, as I have said, Colvin was elected
Slade Professor at Cambridge. In the same month (to
bring the first part of this chronicle to a close and clear
the decks for what was one of the most important days in
his life, later in the year 1873) I find this letter from
George Eliot :

‘ Mv DEAR Mr. Colvin, — I was very glad to see Mr Jebb,
for I had a pre-established respect for him, and should will-
ingly have invited him.

' In general, as you divine, we are averse to the enlarge-
ment of our circle by the hasty introduction of “ friends,”
seeing that very charming people are capable of having
decidedly tmcharming friends.

‘ Thanks for your pretty intention of sendmg me the photo-
graphs. I hunted up Mr Newton’s article, but was little
the wiser for its wise dubieties.

‘ The Fortnightty is not yet come to us When it does
come, my husband will hinder me, according to his usual
prescription for my mental hygiene, from reading what is
said about myself. All he will allow me is an occasional
quotation of what he thinks wiU gratify me by its tone or
bearing. But be assured that we should neither of us
readily impute to you a conscious lack of courtesy.

‘ I have been keeping the New Year dolorously with face-
ache and sore throat, and am still a prisoner in an upper
room.— Yours always truly, , ^ ^ Lewes ’ 2

* The Sunday afternoon receptions at The Priory,’ says
Colvin, in Memories and Notes, ‘ were not always quite free
from stiffness, the presiding genius allowing herself — so at
least some of us thought — to be treated a little too markedly
and formally as such. Perhaps, however, the saaret was
that she by nature lacked the lightness of human touch by

* From a letter in the FitzwiUiam Museum.

* Xn the FitzwiUiam Museum.

JOHN MORLEY AND GEORGE ELIOT 51

which a hostess can diSuse among a mixed company of
guests an atmosphere of social ease. Humour in abimdance
she had, but not of the light, glancing kind : it was a rich,
deliberate humour sprmging from deep sources and corre-
sponding with the general depth and power of her being.
The sigps of such depth and power were strongly impressed
upon her coimtenance. I have known scarce any one in
life whose looks in their own way more strongly drew and
held one. She had of course no regular beauty (who was
it that asked the question, “ Have you seen a horse, sir ?
Then you have seen George Eliot ” ?) : but the expression
of her long, strong, deeply ploughed features was one not
only of habitual broodmg thought and intellectual travail
but of intense and yearning human S37mpathy and
tenderness. . . .

‘ If it had been her nature to seek equality of regard and
companionship from those visitors who came about her,
Lewes, I think, would have hardly made it possible. His
own attitude was always that of the tenderest, most solicitous
adoration ; and adoration, homage, was what he seemed to
expect for her from all who came about them. He never
encouraged the conversation among the Sunday guests in
the room to become equal or general, or allowed one of
them to absorb her attention for very long, but would
bring up one after another to have his or her share of it in
turn, so that if any of us began to feel that talk with her
was taking an easier and closer turn than usual, the next
thing was that it was sure to be interrupted. I recall the
beginnings of several conversations which were thus broken
before I had succeeded in getting more from her than sym-
pathetic enquiries about my own work and studies, or
perhaps about the places I had last been visiting in France
or Italy. Naturally I valued such enquiries, but was not
at all seeking them : what I wanted was not to be drawn
out myself but to draw out my hostess and feel her powers
playing— the spell of her mind and character acting — upon
me and upon the company generally.

52

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Besides entertaining the day’s guests, or helping them
to entertain each other, in groups, Lewes -liked sometimes
to get a few miniites’ chat apart with a single one coming
or going ,' but the subject was almost always connected
in some way with George Eliot’s work and fame. During
the serial publication of Middhmarch I particularly remem-
ber his taking me apart one day as I came in, and holding
me by the button as he announced to me in confidence
concerning one of its chief characters, “ Celia is going to
have a baby ! ” This with an air at once gratified and mys-
terious, like that of some female gossip of a yoimg bride in
real Hfe.’

CHAPTER V

MRS. SITWELL (AFTERWARDS LADY COLVIN)

AND THE FETHERSTONHAUGH FAMILY

We now come to August 1873, which was a very auspicious
month for three people : Frances Sitwell, Sidney Colvin
and Robert Louis Stevenson. This book is not primarily
about Robert Louis Stevenson, yet but for him it would
never have been written ; for it was he who gave Colvin,
a bom devotee, the principal literary devotion of his life ;
and it was he who put the capacity for S37mpathy and stimula-
tion that marked Lady Colvm, then Mrs. Sitwell, to its
most notable test. The two persons who brought Colvin,
Mrs. Sitwell and Stevenson together were Professor Churchill
Babington, a Cambridge colleague of Colvin’s, and his wife,
who had been a Miss Balfour and was both a first cousin
of Robert Louis Stevenson and by marriage a kinswoman
of Mrs. Sitwell. The meeting-place was the rectory at
Cockfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, in Colvin’s own county.
Mrs. Sitwell and Colvin had already met ; Robert Louis
Stevenson, then twenty-two, was new to both of them.

Before proceeding with the story, something ^ould be
said of Mrs. Sitwell and the Fetherstonhaughs. Accord-
ing to a memorandum in Lady Colvin’s handwriting, ‘ the
Fetherstonhaughs descended from a Saxon warrior named
Frithestan, who founded the family in Britain about the
beginning of the eighth century ; he built his house upon
a hill and held the surrounding valle3re by his sword, but
time and Border Scots having destroyed this stronghold
the chieftain of that line selected a more sheltered site in
the “ nalgh,” which in the old Saxon dialect means a valley,

58

54

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

and built Fetherstonhaugh Castle in one of the valleys of
the Tyne. The lord of the Castle was known [as] Frithestan
de Nalgh at the time of the Conquest — ^he took for his arms
gules on a chevron between three ostrich feathers argent,
a pellet with the motto Volens et Valens. An unbroken
male line held the Castle down to 1659. There are tablets
in St. Dunstan-in-the-West, London, and Stanford-le-Hope
in Essex. The Irish family descends from Cuthbert F.
of the Heather Cleugh ‘branch, who after the battle of
Worcester, 1651, fled to Ireland, where he settled and had
five sons.’

From another memorandum in, I think, Cuthbert
Fetherstonhaugh’s handwriting, I take this note : ‘ Our
grandmother, our mother’s mother, was Susan RoUeston —
the RoUestons I may mention trace their descent from RoUo,
Duke of the Normans, and before him until it is lost in the
mists of antiquity. Our great-grandmother was Marjorie
S3mge, daughter of the Bishop of Killaloe, granddaughter
of the Archbishop of Tuam — ^they had a protestant Arch-
bishop in those da3re ; there ’s an R.C. one now. Marjorie
Synge married Wilham Curtis a parson, our great-grandfather.
— ^Our father’s mother was Mary Hardiman, and I think our
grandfather’s mother’s maiden name was Wollf — ^that is all
the information I have been able to collect — ^if I meet any
relative who can give me more details about the family
I ’ll make a note of it.’

From the racy pages of Lady Colvin’s brother Cuthbert’s
reminiscences. After Many Days, pubhshed in Australia in
1918, I take some passages illustrating the family life of
the Fetherstonhaughs. Lady Colvin had been born on
January 25, 1839 ‘I have the honour,’ writes her
brother, ‘ of having been bom on the day Queen Victoria
came to the throne, the 22nd of June, 1837. :^y birthplace
was Dardistown, my father’s home in Coimty Westmeath,
Irdand, not far from Mullingar, famous for its fat cattle,
from which originated the saying applied to girls with thick
ankles, “ beef to the heel like a Mullingar heifer.”

MRS SITWELL

APTERWARDS LADY COLVIN

THE FETHERSTONHAUGHS

55

‘ I remember bdt little of the first six yeeirs of my life,
beyond, from, a window, seeing my father driving with
long reins a colt from whose mouth flew foam, flecked with
blood. Also ! just remember one night seeing a four-in-
hand drag, lamps lighted, leaving Dardistown, having on
board a lot of my uncles, all smoking cigars, boimd for
my grandfather’s place “ Mosstown.” The late Beresford
Cannes, of Parramatta, seemed to know a lot about my
people, for he told me that net only were there usually
forty blood horses in the Mosstown stables, but that often
forty people sat down to dinner there. This is not to be
wondered at when I mention that my grandmother bore no
less than twenty-eight children to my grandfather. She
outhved her husband, to whom she was married at sixteen.
In her old age she used to go to sleep in her armchair after
dinner, and one evening in her seventy-fifth year she did
hot awaken again in this world. Seventeen of the children
^ew up. The men were tall and handsome, all of them
good horsemen and good shots, and I think there were some
pretty gay boys among them. Some of my aunts I can
remember as beautiful women

‘ With such a family, accompanied too with proverbial
Irish prodigality, is it any wonder that my father sold
Dardistown in 1843, under the Encumbered Estates Act,
and took his family to Germany for economy’s sake?
Living and education were very cheap then in Germany.
My father’s family consisted of my mother, three sons and
five daughters — so that moving to Germany with our
belongings was no joke. We went to “ Neuwied-am-
Rhein ” for a year, and I remember a big flood on the Rhme,
and going up to the counter of a shop in a boat. From
Neuwied we went to Frankfurt-am-Main, where we lived for
four jrears until the revolution in 1848 -scared us back to
old Ireland. I must confess that we carried away very
happy memories of Germany and of the Germans. ...

‘ Frankfert is stiU very real to me — ^the Zeil, the Ross
Market,’ file Hotel d’An^eterre, Bethman’s beautiful place

56 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

with the far-famed Ariadne sculpture, thfe Promenade round
the town, made after the fortifications were taken down,
and finally the Judenstrasse where the Jews had to live.
Our house, the “ Burgenmeisterhaus,” a large three-storied
budding, fronted the Promenade, and a very happy and
cheerful life we young people lived m it. There were a
good many British families living in Frankfurt, but we were
on very friendly terms with a number of nice German
families also. My eldest sister and my brothers used to go
to the German balls and parties. We Iridi seemed some-
how to get on better with the Germans than did the English.
We were, I take it, more free and easy, not so stand-off,
“ don’t you know.”

' My father was then forty, quite a young man, though to
me he seemed quite old. He was a splendid shot. (Years
afterwards, on the morning of his eightieth birthday, he
came to my bedroom and held out a bag of snipe he had
shot before breakfast.) He and a great friend of his, Robert
M'Carthy, used to go on diooting excursions in Germany.
They imported a fine upstanding Insh mare, and a real
Iridi jaunting car, which rather amazed the Germans and
caused some amusement.

‘ In Frankfurt I went to a German school, and for four
years I was taught as if I were a German boy (how I praise
God that I was not !), with the result that when we left
Germany I spoke German better than I did English. . . .

‘ Among the English living in Frankfurt when we were
there was a Dr, Leighton and his family. His eldest son
Fred, who afterwards became famous as Sir Frederic
Leighton, was much at our house, and became a prime
favourite with my father, who always called him ” Fritz,”
He was a handsome boy then, about eighteen, and very
attractive. He was studying to be an artist and was a
clever caricaturist. My brother had quite a collection of
his caricatures and little sketches of friends. I had a little
ofl-painting of his done on the cover of an old book, and I
have still a pencil sketch of what he intended to be a paint-

THE FETHERSTONHAUGHS 57

ing of the Babes in the Woods, “ Fritz ” thought himself at
that time to be very much in love with my eldest sister. . . .

' Then came the troublous upheaval year of 1848, and not
thinking it safe to remain in a country seething with revolu-
tion, we decided to leave. Even before we left there was
street fighting in Frankfurt. . . .

‘ We returned to Ireland at about the end of the frightful
famine of 1847 and 1848. The worst was over before our
return, but of the many terrible timds of trouble and distress
through which poor old Ireland has passed, none pressed
more hardly on her than the disastrous famine caused by
the failure of the potato crop, the staple food of my coimtry-
men. The poor people died in himdreds of thousands, of
absolute starvation. . . .

' As our old home “ Dardistown ” had been sold when we
returned to Ireland, we rented a place in Coimty Westmeath
called Rath-CasUn, where we were near many relatives. I
then went to a large school in Wales, All I learned there
was to fight and be a blackguard. . . .

‘ After a year iu Wales I went to school at Belfast at the
old Academy, over which reigned a Dr. Bryce — a Presby-
terian clergyman and a gentle good man. It also was a
large school — about one hundred boarders and a large
number of day boys. While in Wales I had to fight every
boy in the school anywhere near my own age. At Belfast
I really do not remember having had a fight at all. . . .

' After a while we left Rath-Cashn and went to live at
Kingstown, on the sea near Dublin. Our greatest friends
there were the Brookes. The Reverend Mr. Brooke was a
dd^htful man, and he had an equally delightful family.
There was a charming Roman Catholic clergyman in Kings-
town at the time, a tall thin man, and these two men, Mr.
Brooke and Father Germaine, might often be seen coming
along the street arm m arm, the best of friends, and yet
probably the very same evening Mr. Brooke would be
preaching a controversial sermon and dealing sledge-hammer
blows at the other’s dbiurch.

58 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘The eldest son, Stopford, who took holy orders, died
lately. His name has become a household word in religious
and hterary circles. His life of that magnificent and most
lovable man, the Reverend F. W. Robertson, is an enthrall-
ing book. . . .

‘ In our avenue lived the Wolseleys. Garnet, afterwards
Field-Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, was then a lad, bright
and winning. Another brother, who was a constant visitor
at our house, became fin army surgeon, and there I first
met my great friend Fred Wolseley, so weU known in
Australia as the inventor of the shearing machine, of whom
more anon.

‘ In 1852 my father, two brothers and a cousin, Travers
Adamson (afterwards for years Crown Prosecutor in Mel-
bourne) started off for Melbourne to try their luck at the
diggings. I pulled out into Dublin Bay m my boat, met
them in the Bay and waved my last farewell to them. . . .

‘ Most of the twelve months after my father left for
Australia I spent at home and at my uncle’s, as I was
delicate and had to leave school several times. My mother
(a Curtis) came of a clever, talented family — she was very
musical and well read, and to a certain extent a classical
scholar. She could read her New Testament in the Greek
text, and had a httle knowledge of Hebrew.

‘ Just at this time Dickens’ works were coming out in
serial form, and I remember how eagerly we all looked
forward to a new number of David Coftperfield. Truly, our
home was a happy one. My mother used to read Dickens
and Thackeray to her five daughters, and to me when at
home. She was deeply religious — hers was not the church-
going and psalm-singing and pulling a long face sort of
religion, but real religion — the rdigion of Christ. Withal
rile was strictly orthodox. . . .

‘ Four of my sisters are stfll aHve [1917] — one married a
French engineer, M. Ponsarde. She and he went through
the two sieges of Paris. Mon Dieu! how she did hate the
Prussians — “ cochons ” riie alwa37s called them — and I can

THE FETHERSTONHAUGHS

59

now readily believe all the atrocities she attributed to them.
The Ponsaxdes’ sympathies were with the Communists until
they murdered the Archbishop of Paris and started burning
the beautiful dty. For many years I had in my possession
a letter from my sister with Par ballon monie (by balloon
post) on the envelope. I wish I had managed to keep some
of her letters from Paris under siege. She nursed in the
hospitals most of the time. Her husband was afterwards
at the Panama Canal doing engineering work.

‘ Another sister, Fanny Sitwell, when a widow, married
late in life Sidney Colvin.'

Madame Ponsarde, I might mention here, died diortly
before Lady Colvin. Their father, meanwhile, having failed
as a digger, was appointed Police Magistrate at the Buck-
land River, and in 1853 the young Cuthbert went out to
join him. Two years later the rest of the family followed.

It was not till 1892 that Mrs. Sitwell’s father died. I
will insert here a diaracter sketch of him from the Hamilton
Spectator, printed in his son’s book : ‘ A weU-known, vener-
able, but, nevertheless, sprightly figure, that of an old
colonist, respected by all ; the man who had a kindly word
and smile for everybody, and upon whom everybody smiled
in return, wiU be seen amongst us no more. “The dear
old Governor’’ is dead. Not an Excellency, but “The
Governor,’’ for by this name Mr. Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh,
who reigned in the hearts of many people of this district,
will be better and more fondly remembered than by his
ancient and historical family patronymic. Now and again
he might be addressed as “ Mr. Fetherston,’’ for diort, but
the nonagenarian who expired at his residence, “ Correagh,’’
at five o’clock on Wednesday, better liked to be addressed
by the title given him by his many friends years ago. How
it came to be conferred upon him we know not ; but we do
know that he was from time to time introduced to various
Excellencies, including Lord Hopetoun, as “ The Governor,”
and acknowledged by them as such. Many hearing of Ms
death will be apt to exclaim, " Shall we ever look upon hfe

6o THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

•

like again ? ” He was a man amongst men, a genuine
unaffected Irish gentleman — which, all the world over, is
admitted to be the best type of a man,

‘ Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, bom at Grouse Lodge,
County Westmeath, Ireland, on the 27th November 1803,
was a son of Theobald Fetherstonhaugh, of Mosstowh, and
had no fewer than twenty-seven brothers and sisters,
seventeen of whom grew up tall, handsome men and women.
In 1827 he married Miss Susan Curtis, who bore him six
daughters and three sons, of whom five daughters and two
sons are stiU alive. Of her it is said by those who had the
pleasure of her acquaintance, " She was a devout Christian
and faithful friend and helper of the poor and sorrowful.”
This lady went to her rest in 1871.

‘ In 1852 " The Governor ” came out to Australia, where
about that time gold was said to be so abundant that one
could hardly avoid making a fortune, “ The Governor,”
however, managed to avoid it. Two of his sons came out
with him, and in 1853 he was joined by his younger son,
Cuthbert. In 1856 he was followed by his wife and five
daughters, and thus happily umted with his loved ones, he
strove to make his way in the world. Like many other
scions of old families, he tried his luck on the goldfields.
He endeavoured in various ways to make a fortune, but
felt his lack of commercial knowledge, and, whilst making
a large pecuniary loss, merely gained experience. But .he
was an educated man, and his attainments in 1854 enabled
him to secure the position of Police Magistrate at the Buck-
land River. He soon became a well-known figure to the
diggers, and his cheery manner, straight-forwardness, and
never-failing courtesy quickly gained for him the popularity
he never subsequently forfeited.

‘About 1855 Mr, Fetherstonhaugh came to Hamilton,
then known as " The Grange,” when Acheson ffrench was
squire of Monivae, F. Hale Puckle Commissioner of Crown
Lands, and wire fences an unknown quantity. ” The
Gkivemor’s ” jurisdiction extended from Hamilton to

THE FETHERSTONHAUGHS 6i

Casterton, Coleraine* Digby, Branxholme, and in fact all
over the country -of which those were and still are the centres.
There were no shire councils in those days, no roads level
as bowling greens, no bridges across rivers or creeks, but
blow high blow low, with rivers running bankers, he had
periodically to put in an appearance at all those places and
administer the law. He was always well mounted, was as
regular as clockwork in official appointments to the day,
nay to the very minute. There ’was no waiting for the
Police Magistrate to appear, no cause to wonder where he
could be ; this, although many a time and oft he, in order
to reach his destination, had to swim the Warmon, and the
creek on the banks of which the town of Coleraine is situate,
when in flood. Many were the narrow escapes he had
from being carried away. Needless to add that such a
man received a hearty welcome wherever he went. And, so
he continued honestly and zealously to perform his allotted
tasks until the year 1869, when, owing to some political
jugglery, whilst in possession of aU his vigorous faculties,
his mind and judgment unimpaired, his services were dis-
pensed with, and he was superannuated. Twenty years
after his superannuation, when on a visit to New South
Wales, he rode over fifty miles to and at a kangaroo hunt,
and, as our informant tells us, “ came in as fresh as a lark,”
which, we submit, no man with impaired physical or mental
faculties could have done. As a magistrate, who knew him
w^, says, “ His decisions were not only considered equitable,
but always good law.”

'No keener sportsman ever hunted fox or put gun to
shoulder. Even in his youthful days in Westmeath he was
known as the daring fox-hunter, and his prowess on Lancer
is not yet forgotten in that cormty. a snipe-shot he
could, even during recent years, “ wipe the eye ” of many
a younger man. In fact, we have never known of anyone
possessed of a finer constitution, and one could easily believe
hiTn a year or two ago when, his heart’s action commencing
to fail, he was wont to say, “ I have never had a headache

62 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

or taken a dose of physic in my life, and don’t know what
a Ever is.”

‘ In a somewhat hastily, and must we say, sorrowfully,
written accoimt of a long and good hfelike "The Governor’s,”
many circumstances m connection therewith are apt to he
overlooked, but we can mention a few episodes m connec-
tion with him as a sportsman. On one occasion he was
riding to hounds near Hamilton and smoking a short pipe.
His horse slipped m taking off at a rasper, and he came a
regular cropper, landing on his head and smashing a new
hat. Coolly he rose to his feet, and laughingly remarked
to the late Thomas Seymour, who was close behind him,
" Ah ! Tom, I ’ve smashed my hat, but I ’ve saved my
dhudeen ; see, it is still going,” and he mounted again,
puffing away as though nothing had happened. On another
occasion, whilst hunting in Westmeath, he at almost the
very commencement of a long run fractured a shoulder-
blade, but went throughout the hunt without a murmur,
or letting anyone know what had happened. Again, in
1867, an irate Teuton, who, strange to say, did not know
" The Governor ” even by sight, followed him through his
paddock, vowing vengeance, and called out to him, " I ’ll
have you up before old Fetherston ! ” Imagine the man’s
surprise when " The Governor ” turned round, snapped his
fingers, and exclaimed, " I don’t care that for old Fether-
ston.” Such a contempt for the majesty of the law,, as
represented by a known terror to evildoers, quite staggered
Ms accuser, who refrained from further trouble. It is also
said (but indignantly denied by the lady) that "The
Governor ” having come to grief over a rail fence, one of
his daughters being rather close behind him, called out,
" Don’t move. Governor,” and forthwith cleared fence,
father and horse.

‘ We axe indebted to one of " The Governor’s ” nearest
and dearest Mends for the following tribute to his character :
" He ever looked upon the best side of human nature,
but when a cowardly or dishonest action came under his

THE FETHERSTONHAUGHS 63

notice, his denunciation of the offender was scathing and
severe. In religion, he kept to the old well-beaten path,
that of an English churchman of the Evangelical school,
but by no means a bigoted one, being hberal and tolerant
to others who were striving to reach the same goal by other
avenues*.” With Tennyson he believed in “ the larger
hope.” . . .

‘Dunng his last iUness, which extended over five or
six weeks, his kindly consideration for others continued to
be as conspicuous as it had ever been. Though, at times,
suffering intense pain, his thoughts were for those around
him. Patient and resigned, he would sometimes exclaim,
“ The Lord has been very good to me. I wish He would
take me now and give me rest,” and his supphcation was
mercifully granted. A more peaceful death-bed was never
witnessed. Cheerful to the end, confident that he was
amongst those whom Christ died to save, " The Governor ”
sighed his last and glided away into

“ The quiet haven of us all.” ’

Frances Sitwell went out to Australia with the family in
1835, but she did not stay long, returning to marry, at
the early age of sixteen or little more, the Rev. Albert
Sitwell, whom die had known, and was betrothed to, in
Ireland. The next event in her life was an attack of cholera
in C^cutta, where her husband had a chaplaincy, and this
made necessary a return to England, to a hvmg in the East
End of London. Two boys were bom.

In what year Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell first met I have
not ascertained : but it was the late eighteen-sixties. In
1870, says Mr. Champne]^, Colvin, with whom he was then
sharing a house at Hampstead, with Appleton, editor of
the Academy, ‘ invited me to go with him to dine in Bethnal
Green with Mr. and Mrs. Sitwell, with the latter of whom he
was forming a close friaidship, and who, many years later,
became his wife. I fuUy shared his appreciation of the
lady, and she became equally my own friend, giving a new

64 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

charm and increased intimacy to * my already mature
friendship with Sidney Colvin. Not much later the- Sitwells
removed to Minster in Thanet, on his appointment as vicar.
I visited them there on more than one occasion. In our
constant intercourse and ever-ripening friendship I realised
how admirably Mrs. Sitwell supplemented Colvin’s- natural
qualities. Her bright intelligence and instinctive apprecia-
tion of excellence of various kinds seemed as it were an
efflorescence of the moire solid and scholarly judgment of
Sidney, while her social tact and ready S3nnpathy supplied
whatever might have seemed lacking in him of the hghter
graces which conduce to enjoyable social intercourse,’

Among the Sitwells’ friends were her husband’s curate,
J. R. Green the historian, Stopford Brooke and H. R.
Haweis. AH might have gone well had not Mr. Sitwell
been a man of unfortunate temperament and imcongenial
habits. It soon became clear that a rift was probable, and
when Mr. Sitwell was given a country living in the heart
of distant Thanet, a crisis could not be averted. Mrs.
Sitwell, with the amelioration of visits to London friends,
managed to endure ; but when a new tnal came in April
1873, in the death of her younger boy, she broke away. I
find Lady Carhsle thus writing to her : —

‘ My dearest Fannie, — ^Thank you so much for your
Photo of 3^. two dear boys. It was good of you to let us
have it, and I wdl sympathize with the thought you have
that they diould not be separated in our minds, ... I
cannot tell you how glad I am that I really know you and
love you now. I shall never change now towards you — I
shall always feel the most tender loving fondness for you —
and rejoice that we have got to understand one another.
You have been so very dear and affectionate to me — and
I am very grateful to you for it. I do not know whether
any Mend can be much to you who have such a hard life
and who have lost so cruelly much— but if ever I can show
you my affection in deeds, I will do so — for it is very real —

THE EETHERSTONHAUGHS 65

and it may be that some day you may want me. If ever
you do, be quUe certain that I wfll faithfully do my very
utmost for you. . . .

By the time that the Cockfield visit occurred, in August
1873,. Mrs. Sitwell was apparently sufficiently independent
to be acting as secretary of the Working Men’s College in
Queen’s Square, but there had been no official separation.

That this was imminent a year later we learn from a
letter from Lady Carlisle to Colvin in May 1874 : ‘ I know
that this will involve a most trying storm, and I think
as I told her (and I am afraid she was vexed at my sa3nng
so) that she will have to defy a good many people just at
present ; but aU that will soon blow over and everyone
wfll recognize that she has done the right, the wise thing. . . .
I have often and often been thinking of her smce I left
England, and wishing with all my heart that her life could
be set going on a quiet, if not on a happy basis. But her
health requires her to be freed from any more shocks — No
more demands must be made on her extraordinary courage.
Why diould she be allowed to be quite worn out before her
youth is over ’ ’

£

CHAPTER VI

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON ! I

1873

Here, from Memories and Notes, is Colvin’s account of the
Cockfield visit : ‘ I had landed from a Great Eastern train
at a little country station in Suffolk, and was met on the
platform by a stripling in a velvet jacket and straw hat,
who walked up with me to the country rectory where he
was sta3dng and where I had come to stay. ... I could
not wonder at what I presently learnt — how within an hour
of his first appearance at the rectory, knapsack on back, a
few days earlier, he had captivated the whole household.

‘ If you want to realize the kind of effect he made, at
least in the early years when I knew him best, imagine
this attenuated but extraordinarily vivid and vital presence,
with something about it that at first sight struck you as
fireaJd^, rare, fantastic, a touch of the elfin and unearthly,
a sprite, an And. And imagine that, as you got to know
him, this sprite, this visitant from another sphere, turned
out to differ from mankind in general not by being* less
human but by bdng a great deal more human than they ;
richer-blooded, greater-hearted ; more human in all senses
of the word, for he comprised within himself, and would
flash on you in the course of a single afternoon, aH the
difierent ages and half the different characters of man, the
u nf aded fredmess of a child, the ardent outlook and ad-
venturous day-dreams of a boy, the steadfast courage of
manhood, the quick sympathetic tenderness of a woman,
and already, as early as the mid-twenties of his life, an
almost uncanny diare of the ripe fife-wisdom of old age.

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON : I 67

He was a fellow of infinite and unrestrained jest and yet
of infifiite earnest, the one very often a mask for the other ;
a poet, an artist, an adventurer ; a man beset with fle^y
frailties, and despite his infirm health of strong appetites
and unchecked curiosities ; and yet a profoundly sincere
moralist and preacher and son of the Covenanters after
his fashion, deeply conscious of the war within his members,
and deeply bent on actmg up to tjie best he knew. . .

I quote again from Mr. Champneys : ‘ It was late in the
year 1873 that Robert Louis Stevenson first appeared on
the scene. I was among the very first who was intro-
duced to him, and I remember that he spent a week as my
guest in the cottage on the top of Hampstead HiU which
I then occupied as a bachelor. Indeed, I am almost certain
that during this visit he wrote his first paper for an English
publication — the Portfoho, to which both Colvin and I were
contributors. Colvm was the very friend Stevenson needed
at this juncture, for he had already won his spurs in art
and literary criticism, had an extensive acquaintance with
editors, and was both in attainment and judgment specially
fitted to preside over the start of a hterary career — the
more, not the less, because by genius and temperament
these two were so widely different. I have both read and
heard insinuations that Sidney’s Colvm’s fame rested mainly
on his special association with Robert Louis Stevenson.
Any dispute as to the proportion in which each profited by
the other is as distasteful to me as it would have been to
either of them, and it need only be said that the association
was mutually beneficial, that Mrs. Sitwell was fully a partner
in it, and that it endured tiU death.’

‘ Among the guests at Cockfield,’ Colvin continues, ‘ I
found one, a boy of ten, watching for every moment when
he could monopolize Stevenson’s attention, either to daow
off to hum the scenes of his toy theatre or to conduct him
confidentially by the hand about the garden or beside the
moat; while between him and the boy’s mother. Mm.
Sitwdil, there had sprung up an instantaneous understanding.

68 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Not only the lights and brilhancies of his nature, but the
strengths and glooms that underlay them, were from the
first apparent to her, so that in the trying season of his life
which followed he was moved to throw himself upon her
sympathies with the unlimited confidence and devotion
to which his letters of the time bear witness.’

Certain of these letters are printed m the four-volume
edition of Stevenson’s correspondence, where they fill many
pages. Day after day Stevenson poured out his news —
news from within and news from without ; but it was
necessary when that edition was published that certam
parts should be withheld, on account of their intimate
character. The whole correspondence is now in the
Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh, to which Colvin be-
queathed it. In 1923, however, he made a selection from it
which ran through three numbers of the Empire Review, and
from this I now make a further selection, choosing such
passages as show most vividly how dependent the yoimg
man had become upon his new and understanding friend.
Taken together with those published in the four-volume
edition of Stevenson’s Letters, which are well known, they
prove the strength of the hold which she was exercising.

Colvin, in introducing the extracts in the Empire Review,
wrote thus : ‘ It must be borne in mind that the years to
which most of these letters belong were years when
Stevenson’s character was as yet unformed and his life
beset by many difficulties — ^his years, in a word, of Sturm
uni Drang. In his case the Sturm uni Drang were specially
severe ; partly from the native fire of genius in his blood,
partly through his extreme diffidence and uncertainty as to
his own powers and purposes, still more by reason of the
painful misunderstanding, chiefly on religious grounds,
which existed for the time being between Mmself and
his father ; and not a httle, lastly, through the reaction
of bis nature against the uncongenial austerity of the
climate, moral and mental, of his native Edinburgh.

‘ All these elements of disturbance were working danger-

COCKFIELD RECTORY, SUFFOLK

WHERE E L. S AND COLVIN FIRST MET

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON . I 69

ously in him, together with the strain arising from physical
ill-health, when he first met Mrs. Sitwell in his twenty-third
year. In her he found from the first the full measure of
womanly understanding and sympathy of which his nature
was in need. Her helpfulness was presently backed by the
technidal advice and encouragement of Sidney Colvin ;
and under these joint influences he quickly began to find
his feet in literature, and to win acceptance for his work in
the best periodicals of the day. "Several of the schemes
begun at this time and mentioned with eagerness in his
letters came in the end to nothing ; others of his efforts
were readily accepted by such editors as Philip Gilbert
Hamerton (the Portfolio), George Grove [MacmiUan’s
Magazine), and Leslie Stephen {CornhiU Magazine)’

Here is a passage from the letter dated September 9,
1873 : ‘ I am afraid this letter is incoherent a little ; but
this and yesterday have been rather bad da5;« with me.
How poor all my troubles are compared with yours ; I
am sudt a, scaly alligator and go through things on the
whole so toughly and cheerily. I hope you will not mis-
understand tMs letter and think I am Werthering all over
the place. I am quite happy and never think about these
bothers, and I am sure if you were to ask my father and
mother they would tell you that I was as unconcerned as
'any Heathen deity; but “heartless levity” was alwa5rs
one. of my complaints. And a good thing, too. “ Were-
na my heart hcht, I wad die.”

‘ I take it kind in Nature, having a day of broad sunshine
and a great west wind among the garden trees, at this
time of aU others ; the sound of wind and leaves comes in
to me through the window, and if I shut my eyes I might
fancy myself some hundred miles away under a certain tree.
And that is a consolation, too ; these things have been.

‘ “ To-morrow, let it shine or ram.

Yet cannot this the past make vain ,

Nor unoreate and render void
That which was yesterday enjoyed.”

70 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

I have the proof of it at my heart, it never felt so light and
happily stirred in the old days. Just now, when the®whole
world looks to me as if it were ht with gas, and life a sort of
metropolitan railway, it is a great thmg to have clear
memory of sunny places. How my mind rmgs the changes
upon sun and sunny ! Farewell, my dearest friend.’’

Mrs. Sitwell seems to have written to her young friend’s
mother soon after this London visit, for I find Mrs. Steven-
son replymg thus on October 30 : —

‘ Dear Mrs. Sitweix, — Very many thanks to you for your
kind note & for all your goodness to my boy. I can assure
you it has been a great comfort to me to know that he was
among kind friends & weU cared for, particularly just now
when I know he is not strong. I was just thinking of writmg
to teU you how grateful both his Father & I felt to you
when I received your note. I daresay you do not wonder
that I cannot think of letting him go farther away without
getting another sight of him, so I have determined to go to
London with Mr. Stevenson on Saturday, so I shall hope
soon to have an opportimity of telling you in person how
grateful I am to you. Louis has talked so much of you
that I quite feel as if I knew you, but stiU a meeting face to
face will make correspondence easier. I do trust we shall
find our dear boy improving & that a complete change &
rest may with God’s blessing soon restore him to health &
strength. He makes a great blank here, as I daresay you
can understand. As I hope very soon to have the pleasure
of seeing you I shall not write more at present, but with
renewed thanks & very kind regards I am ever, — Yours
most truly, M. I. Stevenson’

In November Stevenson was in London again, to consult
Sir Andrew Clark, who at once despatched him to the
Riviera. En route he wrote a long letter to Mrs. Sitwell,
beginning at Dover, November 5 : ‘ My father was
much delighted with you, as I knew of course he would be ;
but you and Colvin have so lamentably overdone your

MRS SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON : I ' 71

solemnity that you have given rise to an entirely new
theory of my' illness. I have been m “ the very worst
possible hands,” my illness is almost entirely owing to your
society ; and so forth. Are they not perplexmg people to
deal with ?

‘ I ‘have an article in my head which I think might do for
the 'Portfolio ; you see you always inspire me.’

From Paris, November 6 : ‘ There were two English
ladies in the carriage with me 'going to Italy imder the
guidance of a man ; all three stolid, obtuse, and unemo-
tional. It did make me angry to think that a third of the
money that will be spent in hawking these dull creatures
through aU that is sunny and beautiful would suf&ce to
take you, with all your eager sensibihties and qmck nerves.’

CHAPTER VII

GLADSTONE, GAMBETTA, HUGO, SIR CHARLES
NEWTON AND TRELAWNY

1873-1876

We can now return to the year 1873 and resume the story
of Colvin himself. Stevenson, he teUs us, spent a few days
at his cottage at Norwood with him in August, after leaving
Cockfield, and then returned to Edinburgh ; Colvin seems
to have gone to the Howards at Naworth for a short visit,
among his feUow-guests being Mr. Gladstone, who was then
‘ in his fourth year of office as Prime Minister and the sixty-
fourth of his age. He had been on an official visit to
the Queen at Balmoral, and the route by which he had
chosen to leave was a long day's walk, over some of the
roughest tracks and through some of the wildest scenery
in the Grampians, to Kingussie Station on the Highland
Railway. Having slept one night at Kingussie, he took
train the next day to Carlisle, and arrived at Naworth in
the evening, to all appearance perfectly fresh and un-
fatigued by his long tramp of the day before.’

But first a word of description, from Memories and
Notes, of Colvin’s host and his home. 'Naworth, near
Brampton in Cumberland,’ he sajre, ' was one of the two
family seats of the Earls of CarMe, romantically placed on
the steep side of a glen overhanging a beck which runs
down to meet the Irthing near Lanercost Abbey, It was
the country home at that date of George Howard, after-
wards ninth earl, and of his wife Rosalind, by birth a
Stanley of Alderley. No more exceptional or attractive
young couple gathered about them in those days a more

W. E. GLADSTONE

73

varied company of talents and distinctions whether in art,
literature, or politics. George Howard had married fresh
from Cambridge, where he was a couple of years my senior.
His ambition was to be a painter, and he worked sedulously
at the art under the teaching of that fine austere craftsman
and vigorous, caustically tongued personality, Alphonse
Legros.

‘ Besides his painting George Howard cared for nearly
all forms of culture. He had a range of manner vary-
ing from the most captivatingly cordial and mrbane to
the cynically sceptical and ironic. He was a bom lover
of Itiy and things Italian. Nature had even modified
towards the Italian his strongly marked hereditary Howard
type of countenance, and in Tuscany, where the features of
the people generally are apt to bear a special stamp of race
and finish, I have often enough observed to myself in
driving through some provincial market-town, “ Why, here
is a whole population of George Howards.” '

We return now to Mr. Gladstone, in Colvin’s words-
‘ In those first days at Naworth, I remember, I came in
for a sample of what struck me as not being by any means
his best. An opportunity presenting itself, I strove hard
to make him, with the photograph before us, share my
enthusiasm for a certain splendid and almost uninjured
Greek fourth-century head of a goddess, in all probability
Aphrodite, discovered not long before in Armenia and then
imder offer to the British Museum by the dealer Castellani.
Any and every Greek subject that might be broached led
Mr. Gladstone’s mind at once and inevitably to Homer.
Naturally I did not disclose the fact that I was one of the
reviewers who some time earlier, in dealing with his volume
Juventus Mundi, had expressed without compromise the
opinion (shared by practically all trained scholars and
archaeologists) that no Homeric critic had ever riiown, along
with so minute and systematically tabulated a knowledge
of the text, such ingenious perversity as he in comment
and interpretation. For one thing, Mr. Gladstone hdd.

74 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

and worked out with msistent afl&rmation and detail, the
theory that the Iliad and Odyssey were indisputably the
work of a single individual poet ; that so far as concerns
the war of Troy in its human aspects the Iliad is strictly
histoncal, and that as to the gods and goddesses who play
so large a part in the story, they and their several char-
acters and the Olympian system to which they belong are
the actual creation of Homer himself, I found that these
rooted convictions concerning Homer stood in the way of
his being much interested in my Aphroditfe head, or even
admitting that it could be Aphroditi at all.’

Here is an extract from Colvin’s review, in the Pall Mall
Gazette, August 5, 1869 : ' Mr. Gladstone affords a highly
remarkable instance of versatihty in industry, of that habit
of mind which for relief seeks no relaxation, but only what
may be described as a change of tension. It would, how-
ever, be a poor compliment to Mr. Gladstone to discuss
either division of his labours with the other division before
our eyes — to remind ourselves that his politics and his
scholardiip, taken separately, are only parts of a feat of
double activity, and to assume that, as such, they demand
lenience of separate criticism. Neither pohtics nor scholar-
ship are things that can be done by halves. When, there-
fore, we find a Prime Minister who is also a Homeric com-
mentator, we expect, in justification of such duality, that
his administration on the one hand and his commentaries on
the other shall be as well done as if he were pure statesman
or pure scholar. Everyone admits this so far as the
politics are concerned. No one would think of congratulat-
ing Mr. Gladstone on the comparative merit of his Irish
Church BiU, considering the pressure of his classical pursuits.
But the same principle does not find equal recognition in the
case of Learning. Although the days are past when Learn-
ing was supposed to have received a compliment if men in
high places condescended to meddle with her, there is yet a
strong disposition to receive with indulgence a work of hard
^olar^p from the hand of the foremost statesman of hk

W. E. GLADSTONE

75

time. That Mr. Gladstone stands in need of such especial
indulg«ice we by no means say. On the contrary, what-
ever faults we have to find with his work, lack of thorough-
ness or pains will not be among them. But it is necessary
to premise that in treating of the present book we decline
to take into account, what in a general estimate of its
author’s powers we should be bound to msist on, the difficult
circumstances of its production ; and that we propose to
deal with it simply in its relation 'to the subjects which it
handles, simply as a contribution, no matter by whom
made, to European scholarship.’

‘ I was half inclined at the time to suppose,’ the account
contmues in Memories and Notes, ‘ that his coldness in
response to my enthusiasm must arise from caution lest I
should have designs upon the public purse in connection
with the purchase of this head. If so, his caution was
belated, for the purchase, though I did not know it at the
time, had actually been concluded ten days before. But
his mmd, as I had occasion more than once to observe,
seemed always in an alert attitude of self-defence against
any suggestion that seemed to point to an increased ex-
penditure from the public purse. Conversation having
one day [this was at a later period, after Colvin had gone
to the Print Room] turned on public salaries and the relative
scales of pay for this or that kind of service, Mr. Gladstone
said to me, “ I for one would never be a party to increasing
the salaries of you gentlemen of the British Museum, for a
more delightful occupation I cannot conceive.” ’

In the winter of 1873-74, as we know both from Colvin’s
Memories and Notes and Stevenson’s correspondence,
Colvin was twice in the south of France with his new
fnend. According to Memories and Notes he dallied in
Paris on his way thither or back, for it was then tibat he
met Gambetta, Madame Adam and Victor Hugo, of whom
he writes in that book. His first meeting with Gambetta,
he says, was by appointment at his modest quarters in the
Rue Montaigne. ‘ I had till then never seen him dther in

76 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

the tribune or elsewhere. From his reputation as the most
impassioned of combatant political orators and leaders —
or, as his enemies had it, the wildest of demagogues — I
had expected to find in him a t3fpical, high-stnmg, rest-
lessly excitable and volatile son of the South. It was
therefore with some surprise that I found, instead, a sub-
stantial rubicund person, occupying solidly the middle
of a broad settee, who welcomed me with quiet geniality
and proceeded at once to discuss gravely a question which
was then deeply agitating France, that of the freedom of
the Press.

‘ For the next four years or more I seldom passed any
time in Paris without seeking opportunity to know him
better. Once or twice I heard him speak m public debate
at Versailles, once or twice at semi-private political gather-
ings of his supporters. More often, that is perhaps four
or five times, I saw him in the character of host at his o\m
breakfast-table, and about as many times as chief guest
at the evening parties of that most zealous and cordial of
political entertainers, Madame Edmond Adam.

' Among the habitual guests at these breakfasts, and one
of the host’s most intimate and trusted fnends, was the
famous actor Coquelin, whom I knew independently. I
have a lively recollection of a day when, after the meal
was over and cigarettes lighted, Coquelin, seated straddle-
wise and talkmg over the back of his chair, held forth on the
maimer in which, if he had the chance, he would wish to
play the part of Alceste in Moline’s Misardhro-pe. “ On
p&nt Ure iisiingul qmnd on veut," he interjected of himself,
with a gestmre meant to indicate as much : but the idea
that such a part could fit him only showed that an artist
incomparable within his range, and brilliantly intelligent
to boot, could be very imperfectly conscious of his own
phy^cal limitations.'

Inja^letter to Henley after Gambetta’s sudden and tragic
death,’ ^Colvih'’writes : ‘ I am sad about Gambetta : there
was a cruel incompleteness in his destiny : and there are

LfiON GA.MBE'ITA

FROM THE MEMORIAL 1\ THE PI ACE DU CARROISEL TLIILRIFS

L£ON GAMBETTA 77

so few spirits of power in the world, and his was one : and
when i used to see him, which was I suppose about his best
time, he certainly always seemed the bravest and most
genial of strong men and fighters/

At the same time Colvin had been taken to see Victor
Hugo, and on his subsequent visits to Paris — ^in 1874 to
1876 — ^he used always to present himself at the great man’s
door, and sometimes attended his receptions. ‘ At these
evening gatherings,’ he says, ‘ the ex-actress and ex-beauty
Madame Drouet, the housemate and companion of all Hugo’s
later hfe even from before his wife’s death, used to do the
honours. He had just turned his seventieth year, and his
strength of body and mind showed no sign of abatement. , . .

‘ He had a gracious and not too self-conscious patriarchal
courtesy and cordiahty in welcoming his guests. His voice
was m^ow, subdued rather than loud, and even when the
matter of his utterance was declamatory its delivery was
serene. His sturdy figure and abundant — ^though not wild or
untrimmed — ^white hair and beard, with his firm, easy move-
ments and gestures, were full proofs of vigour. His bearing,
which was that of one conscious of authority and tempering
it not with condescension but with a benignant old-fadnoned
grace, I thought became him well. But I thought also
that the demeanour of his entourage was too submissive in
homage, and that the silence for which those nearest him
gave sign when he was about to speak was inconsistent with
social ease. “ Chtd, U mattre va •parler ” — ^surdy it is no
false trick of memory which makes me hear one of the group
of satellite friends, Paul Meurice or Vacquerie or Qaretie
or Lockroy, thus whispering peremptorily to those afxjut
him, with a correspondhig gesture of the hand, on one even-
ing when the conversation threatened to become general.
At any rate to become such it was never, in my experience,
aEowed.’

It is amusing to recall here how, in London at tiie same
time, George Henry Lewes was stage-managing Gborge
Eliot in just the same way.

78 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

In Maxch 1875, Colvin, impelled by his interest in classic
art, went out to Greece to watch the excavation^ of the
temple of Zeus at Olympia, which were then in full force
under German supervision. His companion was Sir Charles
Newton (later to be a colleague), who was then Keeper of
the Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum.
Colvin describes, m Memories and Notes, this learned
administrator. He was not, he says, ‘ m the full sense of
the word a man of genius. That is to say, he had not the
mtensity of being, the radiating fire of the spirit, which
gives to the personahty of gemus its power to donunate
or enthral. But he had a character, and a very marked
character, of his own : his actual achievement was a con-
siderable one in the history of English, nay, of general
Western culture, and in the absence of any full or formal
biography it is right that some picture of him, as living as
may be, however brief, should be attempted by one who
like myself enjoyed the honour of his regard and the advan-
tage of his teaching. He was my senior by all but thirty
years, and I first knew him when I came to London fresh
from my Cambridge degree in 1867-68 and threw myself —
among other studies which I did my best at the same time
to master and to expound in popular reviews and journals
— ^into the special study of classical archaeology. . . .

‘ As he moved about with a somewhat shuffling or flinch-
ing gait (for his feet did not in later years carry him very
well) among the noble damaged marbles at the British
Museum, the kinship between him and them seemed to
strike obviously upon the eye. True, his tall figure was
too spare for that of a rightly proportioned Greek god or
dem%od or sage, but his head was truly Olympian. The
h ai r grew outward from the parting in rich and waving
grizzled masses, to which corresponded a square grizzled
beard somewhat roughly kempt : the brow was intent and
deeply corrugated, the features severely handsome save for
a broken nose, the result of a fall ; but this seemed only to
complete his facial likeness to a Greek Zeus injured and

SIR CHARLES NEWTON

SIR CHARLES NEWTON

79

imperfectly restored. A great scholar and a great gentle-
man, h^was in all companies a distmguished presence and
in all the best was made welcome. . . ,

‘ After their triumph and the establishment of their
empire in 1870 the Germans, keen, to their credit be it
said, in the pursuit and organization of every otha: science
no less than of the sciences of conquest and spoliation — were
determined to take a practical lead in archaeological research
on classic ground; Their first great undertaking was the
excavation, by arrangement with the Greek Government,
of the site of the ancient temple and sacred enclosure of
Zeus at Olympia, a scheme which had been for a while
ardently entertained, but never put in hand, by Lord Elgm,
and at which a few tentative scratchings had later been
actually made by the French under General Maison. By
the winter of 1874-75 this rmdertaking was in full swing.
I was eager to visit and watch it, and with some difficulty
persuaded Newton to meet me towards the end of March at
Athens in order that we might arrange to travel thence to
Olsrmpia together. Some years had gone by since he had
last been in the Levant. It was my own first visit to Greek
Soil. . . .

“The immediate daily fruits of the excavation were
such as to leave Httle time for dreaming, and to raise in
trained minds a hundred absorbing problems. Fragments
of sculpture and architecture were coming up as thick as
potatoes under the spade : the flying Victory of Paionios,
duly identified by its inscribed pedestal ; many drums of
the columns of the great temple lying regularly in rows as
they had fallen outward ; the sculptured figures, one after
another and all more or less shattered, of the east pediment
of the same temple.

' When I was in Greece,’ Colvin adds, ‘ the German
minister there was Herr von Radowitz, a brilliant, still
young -diplomatist who had been until lately Bismarck’s
secretary and stood very high in the great Chancellor’s favour.
He and I saw much of each other at Athens, and were com-

8o

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

panions on several excursions and for the time being great
friends. He having to depart for Berlin and I fot London
about the same time, we had agreed to come away together
by one of the Austrian Lloyd mail-boats proceeding round
Cape Malea to Trieste. An invitation to dinner for both
of us at the English Legation coming for the night on which
we should have started, we decided to change our plans,
stay for the dinner, which we knew was bound to be pleasant,
and travel from Athens by way of Cormth and Patras, a
short cut which would enable us to reach Corfu before the
arrival of the Austrian mail-boat and be picked up there by
her. Carrying out this plan, we came to Corfu accordingly,
and after a few hours’ rest went down to the harbour for the
mail-steamer at the hour when she was due. The hour
passed and she did not appear ; and then another hour and
another, and another, until late in the afternoon there came
the news that she had been in collision with an English cargo
ship at three o’clock in the mommg and gone down like a
stone with absolutely every soul on board. Thus we two
had had as narrow an escape for our lives as it was possible
to have without the least touch or thrill of adventure in it.
Inasmuch as the change of plan which had brought it about
was of my proposal, Herr von Radowitz, and afterwards
his family, chose to look upon me as having saved his life,
and made much of me accordingly when I went to carry
out some studies at Berlin the next year.’

Colvin and Newton remained on mtunate terms until
Newton’s death, in 1894. It was with him, I may inter-
polate here, that Colvin paid his very interesting visit to
that aged Berserk, E. J. Trelawny, the friend of Byron
and Shelley and the author of The Adventures of a Ypuf^er
Son, 1831. This was m 1881, when the old fellow was
rising eighty-nine. In Colvin’s story of the visit he is at his
best : ‘ Newton and I,’ he says, in Memones and Notes,
‘ were the guests for a winter week-end of our friends
Captain and Lady Alice Gaisford in their Sussex home,
distant about a mile from the cottage in the village of

E. J. TRELAWNY 8i

Sompting, where Trdawny had then long been living. X)tir
host, a brother Dilettante of Newton’s and mine, was a son
of the (face famous Gredr scholar and dean of Christ Church,
Thomas Gaisford, and was himself a fine type of handsome,
chivalrous, cultivated English gentleman. He was on
terms of hiendly regard and inter(x>urse — imder some
d^ree of protest, if I remember aright, from Lady Alice —
with the old rebel his neighbour, and by previous arrange-
ment walked over with us and introduced us. The house
where Trelawny hved was a large cottage painted red and
set back a little way on the left-hand side of the road, not
far from the entrance to the village. The veteran received
us in a small, old-fashioned room on the ground floor,
where he sat m an arm-chair with a couple of bkck-and-tan
terriers playing about his feet. I had been accustomed to
hear much of his extraordinary vigour. He had always
been of abstemious habits, and although past eighty-eight,
and a water-drinker, and although he had still inside him
one of the two bullets which had been lodged there by the
assassin Fenton during the Greek war of liberation, he was
neverthdess, it was said, so strong that he had only lately
given up the habit of bathing in the sea in all seasons,
and of warming himself on the coldest mornings, not at
the fire, whicfli he refused to have lighted before noon, but
by the exercise of chopping wood I was therefore some-
what surprised to perceive in him at first sight aU the appear-
ance of decrepitude. He scarcdy moved himsdf in his
chair on our entrance, but sat in a shrunken attitude,
with his hands on his knees, speaking littie, and as if he
could only fiix his attention by an effort. He wore an em-
broidered red cap, of the unbecoming diape in use in B 3 uon’s
4ay, with a stiff projectiig; peak. His head thus appeared
to no advantage ; nevertheless in the adien colour of the
face, the rough grey hair and beard and firmly mod^ed
mouth set dightly awry, in the hard, dear, handsome
aquiline prcjfile (for the nose, though not long, was of
marked a^iteie shape), and ia the masterful, scowling
F

82 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

grey eye, there were traces of something both more dis-
tinguished and more formidable than is seen in Sjr John
Millais’s well-known likeness of him as an old seaman in his
picture “ The North-West Passage,” a likeness with which
the sitter himself was much dissatisfied.

‘ Passing to the circumstances of Shelley’s death in
1822, Trelawny, after showing us the scar where he had
burned his hand in plucking the poet’s heart out of the
adies, detailed at length his reasons for believing that
the sinking of SheUey’s boat the “ Don Juan ” (rediristened
the “ Ariel ”), in the squall after she had left Leghorn
Harbour, was due to foul play. He repeated without
variation the account of the matter given in his published
volume of Records, dwelling particularly on the circumstance
that he had been himself prevented from puttmg out in
company with his friends in Bjnron’s schooner “The
Bohvar ” by warnmgs of the quarantme to which he would
thereby m^e himself liable, addressed to him from the
pier by men affecting to be custom-house officers but who
turned out not to be custom-house officers after all. And
he insisted on the fact that when the wreck of the “ Ariel ”
was brought to the surface her bows were foimd to be stoven
in. This belief that the “ Ariel ” had not gone down by
accident in the squall but been deliberately run down,
was one which had by degrees gamed complete possession
of Trelawny’s mind, but is not shared by those who have
inquired most carefully into the evidences. When we
rose to go he accompanied us into the halL Newton, in
shaking hands, congratulated him on lookmg so very well
considering his age, and then turned to put on his coat :
whereupon I could hear the old man, standing behind him,
and conscious no doubt of his own fast declining health,
growl to himsdf, “ 'S very wdl, ’s very well : that 's the
kind o’ lies I was talkmg of : lies, lies, lies.” . , .

' To have diaken the hand which plucked Shelley’s heart
out of the a^es was,’ Colvin ends, ‘ an experience one was
not likely to forget.’

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON; II
1874-75

The letters from Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell continued to
pour forth, and I resume the pleasant task of extracting
passages from them.

From Mentone, in February 1874 : Mrs. Sitwell had been
in Paris and was now returning to England : ' To-morrow
you go, and to-morrow night the Straits will be again
between us. Absence from you brings home distances to
me wonderfully, and I have a sort of bird’s-eye picture
of the space that separates us always under my eye. . . .

‘ No, my paper is not good ; it has the right stuff in it,
but I have not got it said.

‘ I am afraid S. C., when he comes, will be disappointed.
I did not tell you he had written me such a jolly note,
saying he hoped a great deal from me. It is very nice of
him, but ’I am not so good a card as he thinks ; it is very
doubtful to me if I shall ever have wit enough to do more
than good paragraphs. However, a good paragraph is a
good paragraph, and may give tired people rest and pleasure,
quite as well as a good book, although for not so long ;
a flower in a pot is not a garden, but it is a flower for all
that, and its perfume does the heart good. So let us take
heart of grace and be happy,’

The essay on which he was then engaged was that on
Waif Whitman.

S. C. went out for a while twice during that winter —
1873-74 — and was with Stevenson at Mentone and Monte
Carlo. Colvin has often been accused of a want of humour ;

84 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

but this I think is unfair. He relished humour but did not
seek it or much roll it on the tongue. The reason probably
is that his prevailing desire was to find things to praise,
to become lyrically enthusiastic upon, or even to censure
and dismiss ; and that kind of highway mind has not time
or inclination to loiter in the lanes. Lady Colvin, on the
other hand, loved a joke and laughter. To return to
Colvin and the more frivolous side of life, one performance
m literary facetiousness can be traced to him, or rather to
him as a collaborator, and that is the burlesque hotel
advertisement which he and Stevenson composed together
when they were m the south of France. The only copy
of this card that is known to exist is in the possession of
Mr. Basil Champneys. It is in two languages and runs
(or stumbles) thus : —

‘ GRAND HOTEL GODAM
‘ (Englisch — House)

‘ PLACE DU PARADIS, — ALCIBIADE KROMESKY, PROPRliXAIRE

‘ Tous les agr^ments du Hihg-Life se trouvent r^unis dans
ce magnifique 6tablissement, nouvellement organist et
entretenu sur le pied du confortable le plus recherche. —
Salons de Soci^te, de Lecture et de Billard.

‘ Pension eL prix mod6r6s. Cuisine et service hors ligne.
Sp^dalit^s de rosbif, rhum, th6 Peko6, porterbeer, wischky,
old Thom et autres consommations dans le gofit britannique
— On parle toutes les langues,

‘THE GREAT GOD-DAMN HOTEL

‘ PLACE DU PARADIS — ALCIBIADES KROMESKY, PROPRIETAR

‘AE the agreements of hihg-Hfe are reunited in this
magnificent establMiment, newly organised, and enter-
tained upon the footing of the most researchd confortable.
— Salons of Society, Lecture, and Billiard.

MRS SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON- II 85

‘ Pension to moderate prices. Kitchen and service out
of common. Specialitys of roasbeef, rhum-punsch, Pekog
tea, porterbeer, wischkey, old Thom, and other consumma-
tions in the britisch taste. — One speaks all the languages.'

' Of the literary projects broached between us at that
time,' writes Colvin in Memories and Notes, ‘ the only one I
remember was a spectade-play on that transcendent type
of human vanity, Herostratus, who to keep his name from
being forgotten idndled the fire that burned down the temple
of Ephesus. Psychology and scenic effects as Stevenson
descanted on them come up together in my memory even
yet, not in any exactness of detail, but only in a kind of
vague dazzle and flambo3;ance,'

We may suppose that Mrs. Sitwell was not unaffected
by the ardency of her young adorer, for in March 1874
Lady Carlisle writes to Colvin : ‘ I daresay I have been
lazy about writing owing to the fact that I hear about you
from F. S. How very delightful it is to see her so well. It
is years smce I have seen her an3ffhing like what she is now,
bright and well and comparatively free from trouble — She
laughs so merrily once more and looks as if she could enjoy
things — I think she wdl get through the year tolerably
weU if only she can manage to keep away from Minster
except for Bertie’s summer holydays.'

Stevenson returned to Edinburgh in the spring, and
I continue the extracts from the Empire Review corre-
spondence ; —

‘ Swanslon [May 1874], Friday.

‘ Again very cold. I have been out walking in a sheltered
bit of the garden, in a sun-bhnk. When there is wind, here,
it makes a wonderful noise in the tre^, that fills the ear
agreeably ; and to-day this was broken up and accentuated
with the most delightful love songs from all sorts of birds,
the blackbird supreme, of course. It was delightful ; one
seemed to hear the whole air full of the rustle of the wings
of Spring, Only it was strange it should be so cold.

86

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ I find I must write to you pretty often for dear life. I
am not so strong as I thought I was and — ’

' Saturday,

‘ So far had I written yesterday and the best thing I can
do this morning is just to continue —

and I require to keep always present to my mmd that there
are other people, not here in Edinburgh, and that I have
another life to lead aU over. And you can’t teU. how it
strengthens me to write to you and to hear from you ; your
letters are always tonic to me ; I just say, “ Very well —
there die is — now look here, old man, you must be as nice
as you can.” It doesn’t matter what, or how, you write,
the effect has been always the same in that particular.’

‘Yachf' Heron,”

• Ohan [Early Summer, 1874].

‘ The news, such as it is, has gone to Colvin ; what am I
to say ? I am so stupid, I just wish to put in a word to you.
I am quite happy, and very well for me. I read away a
good deal at odd times, so it isn’t all waste time, and during
the rest I go in hot for health, and my health is better. I
work like a common sailor when it is needful, in rain and
wind, without hurt, and my heart is quite stout now. I
believe in the future faithfully. I am fuHy content and
fear nothing, not death, nor weakness, nor any falling away
from my own standard and yours. I shall be a man yet,
and a good man, although day by day, I see more clearly
by how much I stiU fall diort of the mark of our high calling ;
in how much I am still selfish and peevish and a spoEed
child. You win see that I am writing out of a great black-
ness. It is true, but it does not apaU me (I don’t know how
to spell that word). And there is a good deal of it due to
the tempest that is roaring over my head and filling the
Utde cabin with draughts and shudderings of the air. We
lie here in a good roadstead ; and so do I in my own con-
stancy. Let the wind blow.’

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L STEVENSON: II 87

‘ Edinburgh iAiithtmn, 1874]. Saturday,

’ I have found wLat should interest you. A paper in
which I had sketdied out my life, before I knew you. Here
is the exact copy even to the spelhng ; the incertitude of
the date is characteristic ; —

' “ I 'think now, this 5th or 6th of April, 1873, that I can
see my future life. I think it will run stiller and stiller year
by year ; a very quiet desultoriliy studious existence. If
God only gives me tolerable health, I t hink now I shall be
very happy; work and science calm the mind and stop
gnawing in the brain, and as I am glad to say that I do now
recognise that I shall never be a great man, I may set mysdf
peacefully on a smaller journey ; not without hope of
coming to the inn before nightfall.

O dass mein Leben

Nach diesem Ziel ein ewig Waindeln sey !

Desiderata

1. Good health.

I. 2 to 3 hundred a year.

3. 0 du lieber Gott, friends !

Amen.

Robert Louis Stevenson.”

' I can’t quite say that I know what the “ inn ” was,
therein referred to, but I think I do. It was rather an
interesting find, wasn’t it ? ’

‘ [Edinburgh, Autumn, 1874.]

‘ You remember, perhaps, at least I remember, I once
wrote to you to tell you how you should do with me ; how
it was only by getting on my weak side, looking for the best,
and always taking it for granted that I should do the best
before it is done, that you ever wiU get the b^t out of me.
This is profoundly true. . . . I shall be in London ihis week,
or early next : Isn’t this good news ? and I thi n k we diall
pass a few happy days ; I want you to be the better of

88 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

my visit, if only it is possible — do you think it is ? I think
so, and mean to make it so. ... In a few days, I hope —
hurrah, hurrah, que je suis bien aise ; You get better
and be fit for your work and do it wdl — ^you shatt get better.

' Due in London, Euston, 2.30 on Thursday. Shall go to
Savile Club for orders ; do have orders for me there, and
let them be to come early.'

* Smanston, Saturday [Autumn, 1874].

' O ! — I 'U tell you something funny. You know how
rarely I can see your face : well, last night I kept dreaming
I saw you arrive at the Finchley Road Station, as you did
the afternoon before I left : and I never could catch more
than a glimpse of your face before it turned into somebody
else’s — a horrible, Scotch face, commonplace and bitter.

‘ You don’t know how I yearned to-day to see you all.
I feel myself in the uttermost parts of the earth, alone with
ugly puppets, and my heart just melts within me when I
think of you, and S. C., and Mme. G., and Bob phis cousin,
R. A. M. Stevenson]. Any of the four of you I want to see
badly ; and somehow S. C. most, I feel as if I could be
good for him and am so vexed that he is not wdl.’

* {Edinburgh, late Autumn, 1874.] Saturday.

‘ I was so glad to get your letter, in spite of bad news. It
is strange to think of you so feeble and with aH these troubles
about you ; and then to thi n k of your just holding me by
one hand out of the gulph, which, alas ! is true. I know
that very well ; as the effect of my last stay with you died
away, and the cold weather came, I have had a bad struggle
with myself day by day, and night by night. , . . O don’t
let go my hand.’

' I diall (if I can manage my parents, to whom I have not
yet spoken in the matter) arrive at King’s Cross on Wednes-
day evetdrg. Is there a hotd at King’s Cross ? I diall
come to the College for you, diall I not ? ’

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON • II 89

‘ \Edvnburgh, December, 1874 ] Wednesday.

‘ Thstok you, my dear lady, for your letter : O, yes, God
knows every word of it knocked at my heart, and I will try
to be what you would have me ; and I do feel the groimd
stable under my feet as I have never felt it heretofore.'

‘ Friday

‘ Madonna, I am so glad you are in the world, and I do
want to be remmded of it often, . . . Good night. Madonna
— I pray aU my Gods for you fervently, and if they are
impotent, they are yet beautiful — look at them, and you
win be good and brave.’

‘ Thursday.

‘ By the by, if I am to do a paper that S, C. suggests — and
I think I will — I should like any letter of mine in which
I say an3rthing about winter, snow, ice, Duddingstone, or
even sunsets, to give a look over ; I shall see if I want them,
or not ; I hope I may do without them ; but you see my
letters to you are the only notes I make, and especially
when I am skating my mind runs miles away from literary
intentions, so that my impressions are rather fragmentary
to work upon.’

' [Edinburgh, December, 1874 ]

' Colvin’s article on Champneys’ book is very wise, but I
think he went too far in admitting that the sensations given
us by the Alps were, in themselves, greater than those given
by ^e Roroney Marsh, I don’t think so. A great dead
flat is at least a more ideal, more perfect, more satisfactory
thing than ever so high a hill ; because the Mil mig^it be
ever so much higher, whereas the marsh can be no flatter if
it bust itself. Besides, big hills may be more of a sensation
to a person brought up in Suffolk ; but, if novelty is to
come in at all, quite a flat is a violent sensation to me ; for
I come from the hills — I had not seen an3flidng quite flat,
except the sea and here and there a billiard table, until I went
abroad and spent some da3re in Holland. Please communi-
cate this to Colvin, unless he has quarrelled with me by

90 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

chance — he studiously will not answer my letters. I have
been a bad correspondent, but he has been so much a hadder !
Indeed, if you won’t thmk me getting insane, I t hink the
world in a conspiracy against me ; for devil a one will write
to me except yourself. Even Bob sends me scraps only
fit to hght a pipe with.

' At last I can write ; I could not make a mark on this
paper with a steel pen, and you do not know with how much
sweat of the brow my former letters were written. Now I
have taken to a quill, all goes weU. . . .

‘ I want to know how you are badly. I say, you have
much need to take care of yourself, if it were only for the
sake of a young gentleman in Edinburgh alone — you don’t
know how the thought of an3d:hing going wrong with you
haunts and disquiets me.’

' Wednesday.

‘ Dear, I am wonderfully happy. Pleased with my work,
not disquiet about you ; I must never disquiet myself
about you any more ; you will have strength for all that
comes, after you have found strength for what has come.’

Mr. Champneys’ book, A Quiet Corner of England,
describes the Romney Marsh and Rye district. Stevenson,
Mr. Champneys tells me, reviewed the book in the Academy.

Further extracts : —

' {Edinburgh, early Spring, 1875 ]

‘ The best trumpet that I can suggest is to read Thomas
Carlyle’s Essay on Bums. Sick as I am of reading anything
in which so much as the name of Bums appears, I was really
electrified (beg pardon for such a Daily Telegraphism) by
this. It is fuU of very fine criticism, expressed here and
there in rather an old-fashioned, academical style, full of
beautiful humanity — see the whole passage about Bums
having refused money for his songs — and fuU of wonderful
wisdom. The whole conclusion is indeed admirable ; as
where he says that all fame, riches, fortune of all sorts is to
true peace no more than “ mounting to the house top to

MRS. SITWELL AND R L. STEVENSON: II 91

reach the stars ” ; and again about Byron : " the tire that
was in him was the mad fire of a volcano ; and now we look
sadly into the ashes of a crater which ere long will fill itsdf
with snow.”

‘ I subscribe to that essay. My own is quite unnecessary.
Do read it, it wfil do you good ; it would do the dead good.
It has reminded me once again of the great mistake of my
life — ^and of everybody else’s ; that we are all trying to gain
the whole world if you will, except what alone is worth
keeping ; our own soul. God bless T. Carlyle, say I.’

' [Ed^nburgh, 1875 J Monday.

‘ Dearest Mother, — This is E. A. Poe : —

‘ “ Because I feel that, m the heavens above.

The angels, whispenng to one another.

Can find, among tbeir terms of buimng love.

None so devotioned as that of “ Mother ” ;

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you,

You who are more than mother wnio me,

And fill my heart of hearts ”

‘ I do not know to whom it was that I wrote last spring,
when I was at the bottom of sorrow at Mentone — but I
think it was to Bob ; if it was not to him it was to you —
c alling for a mother ; I felt so lonely just then ; I cannot
tdl you what sense of desertion and loss I had m my heart ;
and I wrote, I remember, to someone, aying out for the
want of a mother— nay, when I fainted one afternoon at
the Villa Marina, and tte first sound I heard was Madame
Garschine saying “ Berecchino ” so softly, I was glad — O, so
glad ! — to take her by the hand as a mother, and make a
mother of her at the time, so far as it would go. You do
not know, perhaps — I do not think I knew myself, perhaps,
until I thought it out to-day — ^how dear a hope, how sorry
a want, this has been for me. For my mother is my father's
wife ; to have a French mother, there must be a French
marriage ; the children of lovers are orphans. I am very
young at heart — ^or (God knows) very old — and what I want
is a mother, and I have one now, have I not ? ’

92

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ [17 Henot Row, Ediinburgh, March 1875.] Wednesday.

‘ Dearest Mother, — I am aU right again, I think, and
write to teU you so at once. Forgive me if I write no more,
I am reading “ The Village on ihe Cliff,” and cannot tell
you how beautiful I think it. I am inclined to give up
literatme. I can’t write like that. Never mind, fe serai
MMe.

‘ Goodbye, dear.’

‘ [17 Henot Row, Edinburgh, March 1875.] Tuesday.

‘ Your son is very sad to-night, dear, very cold m body
and black at heart. The snow lies melting outside under
a thin north-easterly rain. It is bitter cold; and the
thickest shoes are wet through in the length of a street.
I have done no work to-day — ^it would not come ; and I
have been so sad ; so sad, and longed for a sight of you,
and a few moments of speech with you, more than I can say.
Did I teU you — yes, I did, I remember— how I thought
I saw you in the street ? Do you know I wish so much to
meet you by chance somewhere ; and I keep telling myself
I shall see you at the next comer, and malsmg long stories
as a child does ; only you never come. , . .

‘ My vitality is very low in every way ; although I am not
at aU ill — all I want is a little warmth, a Httle sun, a little of
the life I have when I am by you.’

‘ \Edmbwrgh, Spnng, 1875.]

‘ I do not know if you are aware how mudi you hdp me in
my work ; it is not only that I have a strong motive ; it is
that I have always a woman to think of ; and that is for so
much.’

' Swamfon [S-pring, 1875]. Friday night.

‘ I am so glad to hear no ill of your health. You must
not die, I c ann ot think of what life would be to me if
you were gone ; a great black hole, without form and void.
Please keep this in view. Although I speak jocularly I am'
grave at heart. I should be left to speak in the words of

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON: II 93

surely the most affecting historical document in the world —
Emery, Tylney’s character of George Wishart, “ O that the
Lord had left her to me, her poor boy, that ^e might have
finished what she had begun.” I can’t tell you how beauti-
ful that whole paper is from which these words are imitated.
I was reading it again the other day, and my heart came into
my mouth when I got to that passage . one is so little
prepared for such a cry of the soul amid the succinct details
of life and manners that surroimd it. And the sa3dng, in
my mind, attaches itself to you : I have had to explain all
round that you might understand the full meaning of the
words and how they are not simply my words, but have
been sanctified by the fire of martyrdom and the name of
one of the good, pure, quiet delicate spirits of the Earth ;
and you needed to know that to know why I like to apply
them to you.’

' {Edt-nhurgh, late February, 1875 .] Friday

‘ First, the Wagner Concert. Yes, it was a great success,
and what do you think ? Baxter said the very thing of
him that you had said, to wit, that he was like Walt
Whitman. Baxter and I go together to all the concerts ihat
are going ; however, we generally come and go with
Beethoven — ^we have now added Wagner to the list ; he
is joHy and fre.sh, like a wind.'

Baxter was Charles Baxter, Stevenson’s lawyer frigid
and, later, executor : one of the ' Three Musketeers ’ in
Henley’s poem.

"[Pans, Spring, 1875 .] Friday,

'My dear, the Gods are against me. I have missed
the trains so freely that I am stuck here for yet another
night. I shall be in London, however, to-morrow at six.
I shall go straight to the club, in hopes of finding Colvin,
or a note from you. It is the most splendid weather, the
trees are out along the bright streets in their first greens,
and the whole town sounds and shines about one, so that
it goes to the head like wine.’

94 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ [Edinburgh, Spring, 1875 ] Friday.

‘ This spirit of mine must ever be somewhat holy ^ound ;
your son must be better than the sons of other people,
madonna.’

‘ [Swanston, Spring, 1875 ] Saturday.

’ Life is a curious problem (original remark : copjright) ;
and I do not see my way through it very distinctly at
present. I do so hunger and thirst after money (i.e. happi-
ness) , ani yet to get that, I must give up my hope of making
myself strong and well {i.e. happiness) Two birds are
buildtog a nest in the holly before my window ; you should
see them fly up with great straws in their mouths ; God
prosper them. They are better ofl than we ; they are not
obliged to play other people’s games, wear other people’s
clothes, walk with other people’s gait, and say other people’s
silly words after them by leaden rote, imder pain of breaking
hearts and drawing hot tears and driving home the gross
dagger of disappointment into breasts fuU of hope. There,
you see, I am as moral as ever, agam, God help me.

‘ Wild work, madonna, wild work — this decency to others.
I may say with Sir Andrew, “ Nay, I care not for good life ! ”
It seems to me the wildest of follies, the most indecent
prodigality of our little hopes and chances ; and yet — Hey,
diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon. From circumference to middle, the whole is a
riddle, and I hope to be out of it soon. — Impromptu verses :
copyright. Adieu. Well, one thing I have to be thankful
for to “whatever Gods may be.’’ I am no longer the
miserable perverse tremulous childish DEVIL, who came
down to London in March. I could throw my hat over the
house when I think of it — over the house ? — over Uranus.’

‘ Whatever Gods may be,’ introduces W. E. Henley,
' my poet,’ as Stevenson calls him in an earlier letter. The
words are from the famous lyric which begins ‘ Out of the
ni^t which covers me.’ The two men had just met,
Stevenson visiting Henley when he was ill in the Old
Infirmary in Edinburgh. It was Leslie Stephen who

MRS. SITWELL AND R. L. STEVENSON : II 95

introduced them to each other and who published Henley's
first Hqspital poems in the CornhilL
None of the later letters are so intimate. Stevenson had
now, in accordance with his father's wish, passed for the
English Bar, although he had no intention of practising.
He was -seemg more of his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson and
going more often to France, where in 1876 he met Mrs.
Osbourne and fell imder her speU.

Before leaving this penod of his hfe, when he was within
the aura of Mrs. Sitwell, let me quote a poem which he
wrote to her. Undated, it belongs to 1873 or 1874 :

* I read, dear fnend, m your dear face
Your life’s tale told with perfect grace ,

The nver of your hfe I trace
Up the sun-chequered, devious bed
To the far-distant fountain-head

‘ Not one quick beat of your warm heart,

Nor thought that came to you apart,

Pleasure nor pity, love nor pain
Nor sorrow, has gone by m vain ;

' But as some lone, wood-wandenng child
Brings home with him at evening mild
The thorns and flowers of all the wild,

From your whole hfe, O fair and true,

Yoiu: flowers and thorns you bnng with you ! ’

CHAPTER IX

THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM AND ROBERT BROWNING

1876-1880

In 1876 Colvin was appointed director of the FitzwiUiam
Musenm at Cambridge, a post he held until 1884. The
following words from Memories and Notes teU us something
of his activities there : ' In the years when I had charge
of the FitzwilHam Museum at Cambridge, my main
endeavour had been not so much to enrich its collection
of miscellaneous original objects of art as to save out of
its revenue a fund for providing the first and mdispensable
apparatus for archaeological study in the shape of a gallery
of casts from antique sculpture. The new gallery was
built and stocked, and in April 1884 a representative
company came to the ceremony of its formal opening.
The Prmce of Wales was present, and among the speaikers
were such practised celebrities as James Russell LoweU,
then American minister in London ; Lord Houghton ;
Professor Jebb, who had latdy been public orator of the
university ; and the President of the Royal Academy, Sir
Frederic Leighton. I can see and hear them now. Lowell,
with his square and vigorous presence and his great square-
cut tawny beard already beginning to grizzle, spoke without
technical knowledge but with practised readiness and
genial good sense as he regretted the absence of a brother
diplomat who chanced to be a past master of these subjects
(tiiat was the then French ambassador in London, M,
Waddington). Lord Houghton, on public occasions always
eloquent and elegant in ^ite of a ^pshod habit of dress
and person, spoke, with sweeping gestures of the arqi and

THE FITZWILLIAM AND BROWNING <y]

his scarlet gown half slipping ofi his back, more aptly and
graciously even than usual. Jebb, classically pointed and
polished both in phrase and delivery, and Leighton, flondly
handsome and winning in person and in the use of tongue
and brush alike ever gracefully accomplished, were both
at their best.

' But far the most effective speech of the day, despite
its somewhat antiquated style and stiff dehvery, was
Newton’s. For many years of his life he had laboured in
vain to get his beloved studies officially recognized and
admitted into the curriculum of his own university of
Oxford. To see the object achieved at Cambridge, with
the certainty that Oxford must soon follow, was to him like
a view from Pisgah. His fine, worn and furrowed, now
ageing face took a touching look of rehef and happiness as
he defined and defended with a master’s insight the studies
to which he had given his life, declaring as he wound up,
“ I rejoice to have seen this day ; it is a day I have waited
for, and prayed for, and toiled for — ^in many lands — and
when I looked this mommg at the cast of the little figure of
Proserpine I myself discovered at Cnidos, I was reminded
of her avoSos when she came back from the darkness of
Hades into the light of the upper world, and the thought
came to me that this was the apoSoi of archaeology, so long
buried in England.” ’

A few sentences from John Morley's letters at this
time, 1876. On September 15 he wrote : ‘ Of course, say
what you like about G. Sand. You will naturally spare
G. Eliot’s feelings as much as critical honesty will permit.’
Colvin was reviewing Danid Derovda for the November
number, and I find a characteristically candid letter from
Lady Carlisle on this theme :

* I FalacB Green, Kensington, W.

‘ Nov. 2, 76

‘ My DEAR Mr. Colvin, — I have just read your article on
Daniel Deronda and I cannot refrain from writing you a
httle note to express my great pleasure therein. The
a

'gS THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

criticism from beginning to end is truly admirable : I liad
no idea how good it was likely to be — ^but mdeed in mjr
humble opinion it is first rate. It is very long since I have
read anything of your’s except an article on University
Reform and that Homeric h 5 mm which you kindly sent me,
so that I scarcely knew how exceedingly good you were
'likely to make a piece of difficult cnticism. For surely
'Daniel Deronda is most hard to judge rightly. What a
'wretched performance the Edinbro’ Review article was ! —
you have done Mrs. Lewes full justice, and chosen all your
points with most acute discrimination — I daresay it will
seem to you somewhat presumptuous on my part that I
should think my opinion worth giving, but after all, you
write magazine articles for the public and I am one of it.
Moreover my pleasure was considerable and I like for my
own satisfaction to express it. What a pity that your
political opinions on foreign matters are so sadly inferior
to your hterary criticisms 1 — By the way I must take
objection m yr. article to your passing depreciation of
G. Sand's theism — How incorrigibly intolerant you are on
that subject. — Yrs. sincerely,

‘Rosalind Howard'

Before leaving Lady Carlisle, who ceased about this time
to be an active correspondent, let me quote from another
characteristic letter : ‘ All George’s Flaxman drawings

are entirely at yr. service — as is anjihing and everything
else in our house. Borrow or take anything you like at
any time from i Palace Green. We are enduring anti-
quarian^m now — a thing George likes and I detest. Col.
Fox my brother-in-law is here and digs up Roman camps
and cares for nothing from w^n he cannot gain some know-
ledge ; cannot even enjoy a view unless he can glean fr.
it some information about the geological course of a river.
It is so tedious. Then Dr. Bruce arrives to-day. He is
the man who has written that great big book on the Roman
Wall. I hope Col. Fox will amuse him for I am sure I am

THE FITZWILLIAM AND BROWNING 99

incapable of doing so — I wish you were here for it might
interest you to go to the Roman camp ; they are going to
to-morrow. It is 18 miles off and we have never seen it.
George is domg much drawing and, as you will have observed,
answers no letters. Bad boy ! — He does not deserve to
get letters.’

From Morley, m November 1876 : ‘ I am just back from
Berne and Florence. Many a time did I wish you were
there to instruct and guide my crude judgments.’

A more serious matter than reviews of books was occupy-
ing Morley’s mind a little later in the same month : the con-
ference regarding the aftermath of the Crimean War that
threatened us at that time. ‘ I go wholly with you,’ he
wrote, ‘ as to the Conference — and declined to have any-
thing to do with it. A public meeting to express in a
broad general way the resolution that we won’t go to war
is one thing ; but for a miscellaneous crowd, even of accom-
plished men, to pretend to settle details of administration
in the Provmces — and that is what the Conference pretends
— ^is surely a piece of nonsense. I feel so uncertain (as every
sensible man who has not thought about the matter with all
his mind and for years and with good counsel from soldiers
and sailors must feel uncertain) about the peril to us of
Russia, that at present I am content to say this: ‘Let
Russia smash the Turk, if she likes : but if she advances
on Constantinople, or comes within a certain distance,
then we will occupy Const., not as enemy of Russia or friend
of Turk, but as European constable.’

Colvin’s duties as Slade Professor led Morley to remark
at the end of this letter : ‘ Tell me if you hear of a good
literary contributor, who won’t go and be made Slade
Professor and desert me.’

On November 29, 1876 : ‘ What do you say to writing
a charming little artide for me on Florence — ^with Mrs.
Oliphant’s new book for a text on which to hang a de-
lightful discourse ? Do, I beseech you. The man, the
subject, the place, the public — ^all in accord.’

100 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

A month later ; ‘ I wrote to you some time ago about
Florence, and an article thereon. You deigned no response
to my poor letter. So that is at an end. Now wiU you
write an essay, narrative, historical, descriptive, pictorial,
on Tthan, k propos of the new life of said Titian ? Please
answer — and answer Yes.’ I do not find this article

In the spring of 1876 I find George Howard writing to
Colvin from Rome : ‘ I was so glad to get your letter and to
hear that you were going to have the dehght of a travel in
Greece. I was also delighted to hear of your renewed professor-
ship — ^though I suppose that there was no danger about that.
I certainly envy you your Greece — I daresay Newton will
come out more lively when he gets his foot on his native
marble. By the way, I am not at all prepared to believe
in aU your superlatives about these Olympian things — even
though I read Newton’s paper about them. The last thing
dug up is always cracked up in that way. Now you and
Newton will be able to arrange together what you shall say
— ^but we won’t believe you — ^just wait and see. I have been
revolving in my mind some excellent subjects for great
decorative work — When you get your job done at Cambridge
do you think you could give me a commission for frescoes ?
Here are the subjects .

‘ I. S. C. re-elected to his Professorial chair by acclama-
tion.

‘ 2. S. C. embarks for his travels in Greece.

‘ 3. S. C. travels with Newton.

‘ 4. S. C. inspects the marbles at Ol3unpia.

' 5. a difference of opinion with German professors.

‘ 6. S. C. captured by bandits.

' 7. S. C. proclaimed president of the Greek Republic.

‘ 8. S. C. returns to Cambridge and opens a museum of
casts & gallery of chromolithographs.

'There — don’t you think those would look well on the
walls of the Fitzwilliam ? It would be doing something for
the way of fostering a real spirit of art in the University, and

ROBERT BROWNING

THE FITZWILLIAM AND BROWNING lor

I would promise to employ none but women as my assistants.
This Awould probably cause a great rush of students to Girton
& Merton.

‘ Of omr proceedings here there is nothing to say. Every
day I work— very slowly though — Once a week I ride on
the Campagna — ^which is more heavenly than an5rthing that
you can imagine. Yesterday I rode where the whole
coimtry looked like a Cumberland moor covered with
asphodel instead of heather.

' My wife and children are deep in antiquarianism and I
think of running them all for the next professorship that
turns up. So look out. Of painters here, there is Costa —
whose work you do not know weU, I think ; it is splendid.
You ought to come here m order to acquaint yourself with
the certainties of modem art, after having muddled your
mind with the uncertainties of antique ditto. . . .’

It was, Colvm tells us, at Naworth that he first met
Robert Browning, from whom, in this period of the 'seventies,
I find two or three letters, not, however, of importance.
Colvin’s description of the poet has much life : ‘ Loudness
of voice and a vigorous geniahty of bearing were what, on
the surface, chiefly distmguished Brownmg from other
Englishmen in social hfe throughout these years. Need-
less to say, the veriest oaf could not have mistaken them
for vulgarity. The poet's biographer and most confidential
friend, the late Mrs. Sutherland Orr, used to say that they
were originally the mask of a real shjmess and diffidence
on first confronting, m advanced middle hfe, the ordeal of
mixed general society. I should rather have supposed that
they were the natural S3miptoms of an inborn vital energy
surpassing by threefold those of other men. Certainly the
poet’s shortish robust figure, held always firmly upright
with the powerful grey-haired and bearded head a httle
thrown back, his cordial greetings and vigorous confidentkd
and affectionate gestures, would have conveyed the impres-
sion of such vitaUty, even had the same impression not
be^ forced upon those of us who were readers by the

102 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

surprising prodigality in these years (I speak of the early
’seventies) of his work in literature. ... ,

‘ It is a curious fact that in spite of the intensity of in-
tellectual and emotional effort to which for the most part
they bear witness. Browning’s poetical labours, — excepting,
no doubt, those he was accustomed to read aloud among
his friends, — were wont to leave little trace or echo in his
own memory. Was this perhaps because of their very
rapidity and abundance ? Such was at any rate the case ;
and I remember with what amused gusto he related one
day how a lady friend had been reading him out certain
verses, and how he had slapped his thigh (a very charac-
teristic action, by the way) and said, “ By Jove, that ’s
fine ” ; how then she had asked him who wrote them and
he could not say ; and how surprised he was when she
had told him they were his own.

' Brownmg’s talk had not much intellectual resemblance
to his poetry. That is to say, it was not apt to be specially
profound or subtle ; stUl less was it ever entangled or obscure
. . . (The mere act of writing seemed to have a peculiar
effect on him, for I have known him manage to be obscure
even in a telegram.) Rather his style in talk was straight-
forward, plain, emphatic, heartily and agreeably voluble,
ranging easily from deep earnest to jolly jest, rich and varied
in matter but avoiding rather than courting the abstruse
whether in speculation or controversy, and often conde-
scending freely to ordinary human gossip on a level with the
rest of us. Its general tone was genially kind, encouraging
and fortifying ; but no one was more promptly moved to
indignation, indignation to which he never hesitated to give
effect, by any tale or instance of cruelty or calumny or in-
justice : nor could anyone be more tenderly or chivalrously
ssrmpathetic with the victim of such offences. Not to quote
instances known to me of a more private and personal kind,
I remernber his strong and reiterated expressions of anger
against Froude for having, as he thought, misrepresented
the character of Carlyle. Instead of being the hard map

THE FITZWILLIAM AND BROWNING 103

figured in Froude’s pages — inconsiderate in relations with
his wi^, unkind, in one instance at least, in his treatment
of a horse — Carlyle, maintained Browning, was the most
intensely, sensitively tender-hearted of men : and he went
on to tell how, as he walked one day in Chelsea with Carlyle’s
arm in- his, a butcher-boy drove by savagely flogging his
horse and he felt the sage shake from head to foot in a
spasm of righteous indignation. . . .

‘ One of my vividest recollections is of an evening when
he made one of a party of three to see the great Italian
tragedian Salvini play King Lear. Everyone had seen
Salvini play Othello, his most usual Shakespearean part;
but this performance of Lear was new to us all. It
turned out to be overwhelming, an absolute, ideal incarna-
tion of ruined age and outcast greatness and shattered
reason and unchilded fatherhood and fallen majesty in
despair. Browning sat there between us, his face set firm
■and white like marble, but before the end tears were cours-
ing down it quite unchecked. He seemed unconscious of
them, and as we came out could only murmur with a kind
of awe, “ It makes one wonder which is the greater, the poet
or the actor.” ’

Here is a note from Browning to Colvin on his theory of
translations. It belongs to 1877 : ‘ I am probably more
of your mind than you suppose, about the sort of transla-
tion I should like for myself and for you : but I only under-
took to “ transcribe ” — esteeming it sufficient success if I
put anybody ignorant of Greek in something like the
position of one acquainted with it. This latter person
recognizes under a given word the corresponding modem
sense — ^but he sees the — ^perhaps grotesque — ^word find,
and supplies the elucidation for himself : so I expect an
intelligent reader to do, because it seems part of my
business to instruct him that, for instance, the Greeks
called wpaTr/Se? what we call “ imderstanding.” But it
is ungracious work and I have done with it.’ ^
i la the Fitffsviilmm Museum.

104 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

On the publication of Mrs. Sutherland Orr’s htfe and
Letters of Robert Browning, Mrs. Sitwell, who suppl^ented
her slender resources by journalism and translation, said
in the National Review : ‘ Those who knew Browning
need no written remmder of him. The stimulating genial-
ity of his presence, the warm grasp of the hand that
sent us on our way rejoicing if we met him but for a
moment in a London crudh, made a difference m the day.
And those who have heard his somewhat strident voice
grow tender even to tears m reading out his own Andrea
del Sarto have a memory of him that will remain with them
for Hfe.’

That, and a passage about the women in Meredith’s
novels (to be quoted later), are the only specimens of
Mrs. Sitwell’s literary work that I have found, except a
few musical criticisms for the World; but I know that
die worked very hard with her pen. Latterly she wrote
nothing but letters : warm, impulsive, gossipy, but not
remarkable for style.

The years 1878 to 1881 are not very fruitful. Colvin
was in residence in Cambridge, busy with his two
Cambridge appomtments and m constant correspondence
with Stevenson and, as we are about to see, with Henley.
At Easter of that year he was in Paris with Burne-Jones.

John Morley again, after being appointed editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette. On May 14, 1880 : ‘ Your collaboration
on my small paper will be most welcome. We are in urgent
need. Can you not send me an occasional note — ^from
8 to 15 lines — ^now and then, while we wait to arrange for
more serious matters. Pray help me, if you can. The
shortest note will be useful. Avoid the beaten track as you
would naturally do. Anythg. literary, social, educational,
academic.’

The PaU Mall Gazette, it will be remembered by students
of the history of London journalism, after a long career
as a Tory organ, under Frederick Greenwood, was suddenly,
in April 1880, bought by George Murray Smith, the publMier

THE FITZWILLIAM AND BROWNING 105

and founder of the Dictionary of Naiional Biography, as a
gift to ]jis Liberal son-in-law, the late Henry Yates Thomp-
son, who appointed Morley as its editor. Greenwood, find-
ing himself out in the cold, lost no time in collecting
capital to establish the St. James’s Gazette in which to carry
on his True Blue policy. Colvin would naturally gravitate
to a Conservative rather than a Radical paper, but he seems
to have worked for Morley now and then. On December 12,
1880, for instance, I find hhn telling Henley to look at to-
morrow’s Pall Mall Gazette for hrs article on Hall Caine’s
account of the last days of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

On March 29, 1881, Morley wrote : ‘ I wish Comyns Carr
would work a bit harder for me. Why does a taste for the
fine arts make men so tardy with their copy ? ’

In 1879 Colvin became a member of the Athenaeum Club,
and to the end of his life was closely associated with all
its activities.

In 1880 appeared the first volume (not yet followed by
its second) of A History of Painting, from the German
of Dr. Alfred Woltmann and Dr. Karl Woermans, edited
by Sidney Colvin, M.A. The name of the translator was
not given.

CHAPTER X

W. E. HENLEY
1879-1881

It is not, I fancy, generally thought that Colvin and Henley
were ever intimate ; but as a matter of fact there was a
time when Henley constantly sought Colvin’s advice and
help and corresponded with him in the freest possible way.
This is abundantly proved by the letters from Henley to
Colvin which Colvin preserved, and the letters from Colvin
to Henley which Mr. Charles Whibley has kindly placed at
my disposal. From 1879 to 1881 the correspondence was
continuous and of the most cordial. It is regrettable that
after this the two men drifted apart. The reason is supplied
by a curious note on the broken relations between Stevenson
and Henley, culminatmg in the famous article by Henley
after the appearance of Sir Graham Balfour’s Life of Robert
Louis Stevenson in 1901. This note was written by Colvin
not long before his death, and it runs thus : —

' To Future Biographers or Commentators on the
Biography of Robert Louis Stevenson

‘ With reference to the causes of estrangement, and in the
end actual quarrel, between Stevenson's widow and his
sometime close friend William Ernest Henley, it ought to
be publicly known that the wife had ample & just cause
for regartog the friendship as one that entailed risks to
Louis’s health and diould be discouraged accordingly. For
all his crippled bodily condition, Henley was in talk the
most boisterously untiring, the lustiest & most stimulating
of companions, and could never bring himself to observe
the consideration due to Louis’s frail health & impaired

W. E. HENLEY

107

lungs. Anxiety on this acct was the main cause of the
wife’s djjiliking his society for her husband. I can testify
from my own experience that she was not moved by the
kind of jealousy which a wife commonly feels towards the
Mends of her husband’s bachelor days : I had been an even
closer intimate of Stevenson than Henley had, and without
attempting to come between us she took me into her own
engaging affectionate intimacy during their married life;
simply, I believe, because I showed a reasonable considera-
tion in forbearing to tax his energies as a companion too
much.

‘ No doubt, also, experience of the practical failure of the
experiment in play-writing on which Stevenson spent so
much effort with little or no result in conjunction with this
same Mend made the wife regard the Mendship as one that
brought a dangerous amount of exertion with no correspond-
ing advantages.’

Into the particulars of the case I cannot go, having no
knowledge, nor does it seem to me now worth while. But
I may say that the perusal of Mrs. Stevenson’s letters
during the Bournemouth period supports Colvm’s view.
Colvin, whatever his own feelings as to Henley may have
been, was so pledged to the Stevensons, so involved in their
affairs, that he went with them in the matter. I neva:
heard him say anything about it. Later, we ^all see,
in 1895, Colvin asked Henley’s advice about Weir of
Hermiston ; but the last preserved letter in this period of
cordial correspondence belongs to 1881.

Henley’s letters in this period are frank and vigorous,
as he always was, but the letters from Colvin are by no
means lacking in spmt and they reveal also his untiring
kindness. Most of them are concerned with Henley’s efforts
to establish himself in London journalism and Colvin’s
aids to that end ; there are also many sidelights on the
Stevenscms, and a number describe Colvin’s campaign
amoi^ the theatrical managers to get Deacon Broiie
accepted.

io8 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

In 1879 Henley was thirty and, on the cessation of his
paper, London, in need of work. In London had appeared
Stevenson's Nm Arabian Nights and many of Henley’s
poems and criticisms.

The first letter, which I quote in full, is dated from
Stevenson’s paternal home, January 20, 1879, and refers
to Deacon Brodie, which Henley was then writing in coUa-
horation with Stevenson. It is a joint letter :

‘ My dear Colvin, — This should be “ Our dear Colvin,”
or “ Our Colvin which art in heaven,” Act IV is complete.
We are of opinion that it ain’t so damned bad, tho’ in some
ways Act III, as it ought to be, is the flower of the flock for
passion.

‘ About the transposition of tableaux demanded. I ifliis
is R. L. S.) think there ’s a sight of good in your reasons
{W. E. H. adheres). But, first — ^the act must progress in
emotion, not in time. Chapel’s Court is a piece of pure stage
business, & stage talk, with nothing but one very moving
incident and that at the end. After the deep human emotion
of the “Two Women” you would simply lose in Chapel’s
Court aU you had already gained before Burke’s Door, and
have to begin your last act again on a cold iron with the be-
ginning of the last tableau. Remember, a play is emotion as
a statue is marble. Incident, story, these are but the pedestal.
Sophocles teUs you a story which is a mass of tangle &
contradiction ; yes, but the emotion steadily progresses to
the end. We can’t do that ; but we must not stumble back
in the full course of the last act. This is the reason on
which I {complete adhesion of W. E. H.) we stand or fall.

‘ Secondly. You will see when you read Tableau X that
Tableau IX requires immediately to precede it. The
Doctor enters ; wdl, here is what the Doctor does.

'Thirdly. Tableau VII is not a burglary; rightly looked
at, it is a scene of passion. The two scenes, although
formally alike, are essentially opposed in character, feeling
& appearance.

W. E. HENLEY

109

‘ Fourthly. Chapel’s Court is not an exhausting scene to
the acto^ ; and when you see what he is called upon to do
in Tableau X you will recognise the necessity of a rest
immediately preceding %t. It is a case for pegs — of soup or
other stimulant — say liquorice water.

‘ Fifthly, and of course it’s just as well that it should be a
set scene and not a flat.

‘The last four are just thrown in. Number One’s the
clincher. Number One ’s the art of writing plays : mind
you, neither more nor less.

‘ The second act of “ Rogue Denzil’s Death ” or a “ Word
from Cornwell,” or whatever it is, was made yesterday
afternoon. It is the finest act in dramatic literature.
“ Whaur ’s Wuflie Shakespere noo ” ? As they say in
Kirkcudbright. {Entire <§• passionate concurrance of R. L. S.)

‘ Next letter to Heriot Row. Let us know by what time
you want the whole MS. We send you fourth act ; send it
on registered as before to same address as before. The
cop3dst will be readin the sooner.

‘ Om: one doubt about the success of the play is the loath-
someness of Brodie in Tab. X.

' We are. Dear Sir, yours very truly,

‘ W. E. H. & George the Pieman.'

‘ Loathesomeness of Brodie throughout, without pred-
judice to Home and Ainslie. A play never fell by a last
scene if it had any strength; you get the emotion up;
well, the curtain has to come down, if it comes down in
" blood and bones and the name of God,” ’twill do.

‘ Louis has proposed an “ Imaginary conversation ” be-
tween Boswell and the Dook in Ms condemned cell. Think
you it were worth gold ? publishers’ gold ? ’

—George the Pieman was a character in the play and a
pseudon3?m sometime used by R. L. S.

The next letter is from Henley's lodging in London, on
January 26, 1879 •

' Dear Colvin, — You are a good man to write as you

no THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

have written. Whether Irving takes the play or not, it is
of not much consequence now. It has excited your interest
& gained me ( I hope I may say it) your regard ; & the best
of its work is done. I think I shall be grateful to you while
I live.

‘ I got the telegram all right ; I posted it to 'Louis. I
have also posted him your letter. I suppose that on occa-
sion he could come up to London. In any case, I am always
here, & Irving, if he wants me, (God send he may !) can find
me when & how he will.

‘ I found out about the Johnson while in Scotland. My
wife’s people knew some of his people, & told me a pleasant
story of his relations with Irving. Whether he 's up to the
Procurator I know not. A good Ainshe is a necessity too,
you know, & where are we to look for that ?

‘ I have intended the Dock for Kyrle Bellew ever since I
saw that lovely Osric of his ; but Jenkm, who saw that
delightful young man play Claudio in Measure for Measure,
says he has passion as well as grace & gaiety ; & if this be
so there 's our Leslie found. My heart would break to see
the Dook made vulgar & horrible & like a bad low comedian.
But what could I do ? Forrester is a stick as Claudius ;
but he might play Leslie, & who but BeUew could play
George the Pieman ?

‘ AE this is in the air, — miles & miles in the air ! But I
can’t help it. It 's pardonable, is it not ? To come back
to my senses, you saw the alterations we had made, I hope.
I thi]^ we are very greatly mdebted to you for your sugges-
tions. They have strengthened the piece amazingly. The
soliloquy after the interview with the Procurator (Act II)
in particular has been immensely improved. And so has
the end of the scene (Act I Tableau I) between Smith &
the Deakin. I think we shall have to put you m the bfll
as a collaborator.

*The news I have is principally connected with future
work, & will come better orally than thro’ the eye. So I ’U
reserve that much of it. But I ’ ve seen Louis' book [T ranch

W. E. HENLEY

III

With a Donkey]. It is better than the \lidand Voyage].
And DQUglas, the Edinburgh publisher, offered thro me,
to open negotiations with Louis for its purchase. The
young man is greatly pleased with this little mcident ; so
am I ; so, I doubt not, will you be. Douglas told me he
thought 'he could make it pay ; & told me that he should
have thought that at least a thousand of the Voyage had
been sold. Y ou know how far he is, or is not, mistaken.

‘ I ’ve Darwm’s copy of the “ Fairhaven ” to give you
when I see you. I ’m to ask you to take charge of it &
restore it to its owner for Louis.

‘ Mrs. JenHn has a part m hand. I wiE tell you what
presently. She told me not to speak of it for awhile, as to
no other hving soul but myself had she communicated &
even yet in doubt as to whether it would come off. Next
day -I saw her again, & she announced that she had deter-
mined on it. So m May, my dear Colvin, you will have to
come North with us. I & my wife have determined to go ;
& neither you nor we will regret the journey. Shake-
speare’s greatest woman will at last be greatly played. I
suppose I must ask you to keep silence about the whole
bu^ess. Please do so.

‘ When I may see you let me do so. — Faithfully yours,

‘W. E. Henley’

Of Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin, who was one of the Suffolk
Austins, Colvin writes thus in Memories and Notes : ‘ Her
own special gift was for actmg and recitation. It was only
privately exercised, but those of us who had the privilege
of seeing and hearing her will never forget the experience.
Her features were not beautiful, but had a signal range and
thrilling power of expression. In tragic and poetic parts,
espedally in those translated or adapted from the Greek,
riaowed what, as I have already hinted, must needs, had
it been publicly displayed, have been recognized as genius.
To hear her declaim dramatic verse was to enjoy that art
in its veiy perfection. And her gift of dramatic gesture was

II2 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

not less striking. Recalling her, for instance, in the part
of Clytemnestra, I can vouch for having seen on no stage
anything of greater— on the English stage nothing of equal
— power and distinction. Besides these and other figures
of Greek tragedy, Mrs. Jenkin showed the versatility of
her gift by playing with power and success such contrasted
Shakespeare parts as Cleopatra, Katherine the shrew, Viola,
Mrs. Ford, as well as, in other fields of drama, Griselda,
Peg Woffington, and Mrs. Malaprop. Needless to say that
Jenkin, who delighted both passionately and critically in
everything his wife did and was, took especial pride and
joy in these performances, and in getting them up was the
most energetic and capable of stage managers, whether in
the private theatre which he and his friends estabhshed for
a wMe in Edinburgh (and in which the young Louis Steven-
son occasionally bore a part), or on the rarer occasions when
she was able to appear in London.

‘ Of the wise and warm and perfectly unassuming private
virtues of this admirable woman, her tactful human Idnd-
nesses and assiduities, constant and unfailing until the end,
among her friends and descendants, the present is no place
to speak. The affection with which Stevenson never ceased
to regard her, the value he set upon her practical wisdom
and advice as well as the zeal with which he bent himself to
carry out the heavy task his friendship had undertaken in
writing her husband’s life — all these things are made
manifest both in that Life itself and in his published letters
written to her during his invalid years at Bournemouth.’

A letter from Colvin to Henley on February 6, 1879,
tells us what was happening to R. L. S. Mrs. Osbourne
had gone to America to put her house in order and prepare
for their marriage.

‘Dear Henley, — ^Forgive the tardmess of a badgered
Professor-Director vainly trying to do his own work and
keep his friends in mind in the midst of a hundred '
occupations.

W. E. HENLEY

113

‘ Louis had been to pieces, and was together, or nearly
together, again, when he went away yesterday week. He
had got a quite sane letter from an intelligible address in
Spanish California, where, after wild storms, intercepted
flights, and the Lord knows what more, she was for the
present quiet among old friends of her own, away from the
enemy, but with access to the children. What next, who
diall tell ? Louis had eased his mind with a telegram,
without, however, committing himself to anything. He
won’t go suddenly or without telling people. — 'Which is as
much as we can hope at present.

‘ I am so sorry about your overwork, and so vexed and
angry that nothing can "be got out of that Irving. — ^After
our efforts to get at Mm when Louis was here, you see it is
not possible for me to do an3dhing more unless in a manner
that would show I was offended, both on the authors’ a/c
and on my own : and it is not desirable to show that feeling
so long as there is a chance Ms behaviour may be only the
consequence of dilatoriness and shpshoddery, and not the
consequence of his having read and rejected the play.
Damn him. I do, at frequent intervals; but that is no
consolation to the persons principaEy concerned: and I
did hope that by tMs time you might be taking a holiday
with a mind relieved. Let me know if you do get a holiday
all the same, and believe me — ^Yours very sincerely,

‘ Sidney Colvin ’

Although Irving was not interested in Deacon Brodie, he
seems later to have commissioned or half-commissioned
a play on the life of Robert Macaire, by the same authors,
wMch was, however, still-bom. Colvin seems never to have
much admired the great Lyceum hero, yet when Much Ado
Ahowi Nothing was produced in 1882 I find Mm writiug :

‘ It ’s a pretty tMng on the whole, about two-thirds of the
Reatrice really brilliant and delightful, and even old auto-
maiic-legged Irving does some good comedy, especially in
the last act.’

H

114 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

In August 1879 Stevenson followed Mrs. Osbourne to
America, reaching San Francisco on the 30th. The Amateur
EmigrarA tells the pubhc portion of the story. Here is
Colvin’s comment on his departure : ‘ So you see he has
gone on to the far West, iU, and with eveiy condition to
make him worse. If it wasn’t for the frailness, I wouldn’t
mind, but if that spirit will go playing fast and loo-se
with its body, the body will some day decline the associa-
tion — and we shall be left without our Mend. — Of course if
he does live, he will come out somehow or another having
turned it all to good — and it ’s no use doing an3rthing but
hope. But I can’t help fearing at heart as much as
hoping.’

From Henley [undated] : ‘ I ’ve not read " Fine Arts,”
but I will soon. The "Pall Mall Meredith well nigh lolled
me ; & last night I ’d to see Nicholas Ntckleby & do a
notice ere I went to bed. I wrote a very decent little
article, but I won’t ask you to read it. I don’t know how
much will be left of it. A brutal & licentious editor, & so
on I I missed Light & Shade ; but I ’ve got Irving for
to-morrow night, & I shall probably do Henry V. also.

‘ Send Maiires d Petits-Maitres when it comes, also
Histoire du Romantisme, if possible. In return, my verses
— second hospital series — therewith. Please read ’em & if
you 've any remarks to offer, chalk ’em on the margin.

' As you are going to do a Gautier, it might be as well for
you to read Louis Veuillot on him as a stylist. The criti-
cism, which is very severe, is also very instructive. You ’ll
find it in the Odeurs de Pans. Don’t be at the pains of
bujdng the work ; I have it. Let me know if I shall send
it to you. — A Vous toujours.

‘ Have just had a rasping lecture on Style from the
Greenwood. Will show it to you next time I see you. It
appears I don’t write Enghsh, & am a cop3dst of other gents.

‘ I shall knuckle under ; I must keep the Gazette (if I can)
tifl our new Journal is a fact, or till I ’m Editor of The Times
or something of that sort.’

W. E. HENLEY 115

Nicholas Nickleby was a revival, in October 1879, of
Andrew HaUiday’s dramatic version of the novel.

The complete MS of the second series of Henley's Hospital
poems was among Colvin's papers, with a large number of
suggested variations.

Henley writes on December g, 1879 : ‘ There is no news
of the Wanderer [R L. S.] — at least not much. Bob (still
hippodromicaUy given) declares he has had a letter from
the Wanderer, & that the Wanderer “ expects to be married
soon."

‘ To-morrow I am going to see Irving's Digby Grant [in
The Two i?os6s]. The merry greenwood has sprung a
guinea for the stall, & expects an article of “ good quiet
criticism " — the merry one's own words ! I am afraid, my
dear Mr. Sidney Colvin, that I am found out at last. Privately,
I 've alwa3;s known I wasn't a critic ; but I fancied I had
concealed the fact with some success. Then Meredith
spotted me ; what he wanted was " criticism " ; & now
here 's the good greenwood reechoing with the same pathetic
overword. I think I shall begm to take in the Daily Tele-
graph at once. I must try & be critical about the Irving.
Please tell me m 3rour next what criticism is; where it
is to be procured ; how they sell it ; & whether, adds the
Dock's own, whether there’s any reduction on taking a
quantity.

‘ As to that little fandly event you speak of, we haven’t
yet made up our mmds when it is to come off. We
are not, my dear Mr. Sidney Colvin, so gay & free as we
ought, having had little practice & no expenence in these
matters.

' You do not seem to be going to Italy this trip ? I'm
not sorry, as there will be some chance of seeing you, &
also sqme chance of reading you on some other subject than
one antient & fishlike & Florentine. Did you read of your
Fine Arts this morning? What a good review it was!
how carefully the reviewer had read it ! What a fortunate
writer you are ! There 's criticism, if you like, now. It

ii6 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

seems to be your fate {as witness Fine Arts & Flaxman) to
be better & more ardently read than Charles Dickens
himself.

‘ I got on to that Balzac bibliography today for the first
time. What a man ! What a life ! ’

The merry greenwood was Frederick Greenwood, editor
of the Pall Mall Gazette.

Colvin’s ‘Fine Arts' and ‘Flaxman’ were his articles
under those headings in the EncyclopcBdia Bntannica, to
which he was a valued contributor, among his other
articles being those on Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci,
Giotto and Michelangelo, The reference may also be to
Colvin’s early privately-printed book from which I have
quoted : A SelecUon from Occasional Writings on Fine Art,
i§73.

Colvin to Henley, from Paris [no date] : ‘ All sorts of
exhibitions going on here; including one of Delacroix,
which I am glad to find has had the effect of opening people’s
eyes to the mistake they had made in fancymg him a good
artist : believe me, it is a far hohower bubble of a reputa-
tion than that of the literary romantic, Victor Hugo, which
you are so fond of puncturing : a man of an ardent — at
least of a feverish — temperament, agitated with a tumult
of second-hand ideals and aspirations — essentially common
as weE as essentially febrile — ^false and violent in sentiment
as in colour— alike incapable of sane workmanship and of
living imagination : voilh.’

From Henley on January 2, 1880 : ‘ Write by all means.
If you ’ve not sent what you had written, send it. Don’t
defer expostulation because he [R. L. S.] is ill. On the con-
trary. It is absolutely necessary that he should be brought
to see that England & a quiet life are what he wants &
must have if he means to make — I won’t say reputation —
but money by hterature. We ^all pass off all he 's done,
but I won’t answer for much more. Come back he must,
& that soon.

‘ I don’t believe that our letters (I 've not yet written.

W. E HENLEY

FROM THE PAINTING BY WILLIAM NICHOLSON IN THE TATE GALLERY

W. E. HENLEY

117

being too blasphemously given towards California & Cali-
fornia things to trust myself) will have any effect at all in
diverting him from his project. ... All we can hope to do
is to make him get through his book quickly & come back
quickly.

‘I shall try & write to-morrow, though I don’t quite
know what to say. I am hopeful as far as Louis hims elf is
concerned— very hopeful. . . . You may expect that Louis
will resent your criticism of the last three works ; I know
he wiU. But I think it right he should get them ; et avec,
a confident expression of hope for the future, & as confident
a prediction that Monterey and he wiU never produce
anything worth a damn.

' You are too rough on The Egoist. I read over my
Athenemm article yesterday (first time smce Cambridge)
& stand by it. The book is as good & not as bad as you
say. It is an attempt at art by an elderly apprentice of
genius. It is the material for a perfect comedy— not of

intrigue ; d ^n intrigue ; intngue is not comic — ^but of

character — the missing link between Art & Nonsense, An
inorganic “ Misanthrope.” Do you know the French for
jelly-fish ? Then Meredith, c’est Molidre — ^m^duse. The
devil will surely damn him hot and deep. I hate & admire
him. Won’t you try an article on The Egoist somewhere ?
Surely you could get The Times & three columns to do it in ?
How I wish— how I do wish you would !

' Try & see the Bob. When you return you will look
upon the face of one who has read “ Fine Arts,” by Pro-
fessor Colvin. I swear it.

‘ I dine with Lang to-night. Let me see you soon, I
won’t detain you long, & I ’U do my best (in return) to see
you often. Don’t imagine you are going to effuse wisdom
at the cost of me. I look upon you for the vacation as
partly bormd & beholden to me, & I diall worry you as
much and as fully as ever I can.

‘ The Deacon ’s got as far as “ O hewing of hewing^
that I were a good man ! ” It looks nice in print. Read

ci8 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

H. James’s Confidence It will console you for much in
G. Meredith’s Egoist. There ’s a hartist if you like.’

Stevenson’s ‘ last three works/ if by works Henley means
books, were An Inland Voyage, Picturesque Notes on Edin-
burgh, 1878, and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
(dedicated to Colvin), 1879. I think Henley must have
referred to magazine articles. At the time Stevenson was
engaged on The Amateur Emigrant, and in March Colvm
writes : ‘ And joy — (but this is a digression) — I ’ve got the
second half, nearly all, of Louis’s Emigrant ; and it ’s as good
as the first half was bad ; so that reading it in the tram I
found myself chortling at frequent intervals, to the dis-
composure of my fellow-traveUers, who thought of request-
ing the guard to remove the lunatic.’

From Henley [Spring 1880], undated : ‘ F. W, G. [Green-
wood] & I are really very thick. He had a couple of books
waiting for me (He told me, by the way, that Meredith, whom
I stumbled against at the door in the most extraordinary
fashion, had not exactly battened on the P.M. notice any
more than on the Athenceum), & we arranged that though
I may not do the M6ryon exhibition, as he has a gent
attached, I 'm to work off Burty & Wedmore in an article.
I says, then, says I : " Have you given out Yriarte’s
Venice ? ” And says he, “ Yes, I have. Why ? ”
Then I says, “ Because,” I says, “ I diould have liked to
say something about it.” And he says then, ” Any parti-
cular reason ? ” he says. And I says, " Yes,” I says, “ it 's
a much better bit of translation than we usually gets,” I
says. “ Aha ! ” says he, “ I ’E remember that when I see
the article.” And I says, “ Do ! because,” sa}^ I, “ it
will be worth your while,” — And then I laughed in my
sleeve, & dissembled so beautifully that Louis, could he
have seen me, would have been jealous, & handed me over
the wall-coloured cloak incontinent. So there the matter
rests.

‘I saw MaccoU yesterday too. The Dickens article
(7J ccfis.) appears to have pleased him well. It is curious

W. E. HENLEY

119

that Meredith should have winced under my articles as he
seems J:o have done. Maccoli told me the Spectator had
pronounced The Egoist a failure, because its characters
were not human beings. And I go & worry my guts out
& try to teach the blasted public something of the author’s
meaning & games, & the author repudiates me on all hands,
& says that he “ should have preferred to have been
criticized ” ! F. W. G., by the way, was quite under the
Meredithian speU. Decidedly Meredith has the comic
muse attached to his tail, & drags her about with him
wherever he goes.

‘ About Louis. I ’ve sent him the cutting & some
journals. Also a brief note, begging him to work off bi s
games & return most speedily to his sorrowing Mends,
when all will be forgotten & forgiven. Also urgmg hiTn to
try & think out the story of the Pied Piper, with a view to
the improvement of the British Drammy. If he can only
get an intrigue, we will do a real fantasticality on it ; m
good sound verse & careful, well-mmted prose. Gautier’s
ballet set me a-thinldng. It 's not much good in itself,

I fancy ; I liked it worse when I reperused it at home here.
The one notion in it is the enslavement des jeunes filles,
instead of the blessed babes. I really believe, Colvin, that
if Louis will only imagine something, we could found a new
genre in fairy plays, & make our fortunes & the Gaiet3r’s at
the same time.

' I think I ’m gradually getting through my information
somehow. It ’s a good deal mixed with pink & the gay
yoimg feUer called the Book ; but it 's coming. To-day
I 've finished an article for Stephen, & I feel pretty con-
fident that Stephen will not take it. The subject is Moline,
or rather Moli^re’s first lieutenant. La Grange. But there
are many original views in it about Moli^re, Shakespeare,
the musical glasses & the Misanthrope, & the Stephen
(Old Mumblep^, as George persists m calli n g him) will not
bite, I believe, & the original views will take thek virginity
to the butterman. Such, my dear Colvin, is Life 1

120 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ I diouldn’t wonder now if I could manage at last to get
back on the Deacon, And I think there is every possibility
of a certain immortal work on the Fine Arts being read ere
I next foregather with the author.'

Norman MaccoU was the editor of the Athenceum.

The point of the conversation about Yriarte’s Venice
is that Mrs. Sitwell was the translator.

From Henley [April 1880] : ‘ This morning I saw

Thompson. I found him very agreeable & quite w illing
to take of my copy. The dramatic cntidsm he told me,
I must work into my own hands ; there were one or two at
it already, & if I wished to get it, I was to beat them out
of the fidd. Good, of course, but not easy to do ! However,
I put a capital face on the matter, & offered to do K%ng
Rent’s Daughter ; accepted ; so on 20th May, I am hon
the spot. I shall leave Edinburgh in morning & assist at
Lyceum in evening. I am also, I believe, to have the
French plays; & just now, am going into town to get
programmes, & so have occasion to come down on him
about tickets. To conclude, I made a raid on his bookshelf
and gobbled down a lot ; how many of 'em will actually
reach me, I know not.

‘ Payn says that most of the Greenwoodians are yet in
possession ; also, that nothing could be fairer than that
idea of Thompson's, of putting us all to work & taking the
best one. I think it bosh, & believe that jamais, au grand
jamats, I diaU have it — ^the matter — in my hands.'

Owing largely to Colvin’s introductions Henley now had
two evening papers open to him, instead of one, on account of
the PaU Mall becoming Liberal under John Morley, as I
have described in an earlier chapter, and Greenwood foimd-
ing the St. James’s ; but he does not seem to have been
able to adapt his very idiosyncratic style to the complete
satisfaction of either. Here is a very sensible letter from
Colvin on this point : one typical of several : —

‘ My deae Henley, — I ' ve read your Sarah article

W. E. HENLEY 121

(in Guardian) and think the substance of it quite admirable.
But I want to speak again about style ; to make yoxirself
acceptable to echtors — and readers, if you will forgive my
sa3dng what I think — you must get rid of a tendency to a
quaintness which is rather slangy than quaint, and to a
use of eccentric forms and dubious constructions not at all
reafly serving to improve the colour or life of your writing.
“ Fillip up ” is slang and bad form. “ With lacking ” is
quaint and obscure when what you mean is “ for want of.”
The paragraphs describmg S. B.’s gifts and failings, ex-
cellent as cnticism, are too large and involved ; you have,
as a correction, introduced more semi-colons and fewer
full-stops, when what they wanted was fewer semi-colons
and more full-stops, inasmuch as sentences of that length
can only be ventured by a master of structure, movement,
and articulation like Newman or Ruskin. “ Reticient ”
of course is a mispnnt for reticent. “ Elocutionist ” is a
beastly Yanke[e]ism. "A something of” is not English
at aU. “ All too many ” belongs to archaic poetry and not
to modem prose.

‘ Etcettery, etcettexy. Says you, it 's only a hurried article
in a provincial paper. But in great things or little, these
tricks are a disfigurement and riiould be imleamt. I notice
them in the Butler piece, in Ward’s book, as well. “ Rhyth-
mist” for instance is a still beastlier Yankeeism than
elocutionist. “ A someone ” is as bad [as] " a something.”
“ Intelligence of,” for “ comprdiension of ” or “ insight
into,” is bizarre, and more Italian than Englirii. To be
bizarre, that is in one word your temptation ; whether it fe
the knack or the habit which you have to unlearn. To
afford to be bizarre, as I have often told you, you must be
Charles Lamb, with his genius and his leisure for polishing.
Damn bizarrerie, sa}^ the ordinary editor, and not unwisely.
Forgive me ; yet, besides your faculty of criticism, the
faculty of dear straightforwardness in writing, and, be-
sides doing better, you will earn guineas where you earn
diillmgs.

122 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ And above all do not be offended with the above from, —
Yours ever, Sidney Colvin

' You know, don’t you, that I may be right or wrong in
aU this, but my telling you out is the best proof that I take
both your work and yom: friendship seriously ? _S. C.’

From Henley [April 1880] : ‘ I ’ve just written volunteering
a notice of Swinburne’s Songs of the Springtides. Drop
me a line to say how — in what tone — I ought to treat it. If
they say yes, it will be awful. The book ’s an ecstasy of
exaggeration, a rapture of superlatives. Such a son of
Thunder & small beer I never did see.

‘ I would have written yesterday, but had my review to do
— a long one it is ; & had a bad & dreadful cold, besides ; &
had withal an appointment with R. A. M, S. to see the Millet.
I saw it. O Colvin, Colvin ! Why will you not make an
art-critic of me ? I am not a bloody fool, for I can feel &
see & be religious over great art. We went & looked through
the Grosvenor afterwards, & Lord ! how poor it all seemed 1
Beside that solemn fateful figure, those mj^terious birds,
that fatidic landscape, that prophet’s tree — ^but why do I
rave ? Let me rather direct your attention to the words
of T. Taylor, Esquire in The Times, in a comparison of
Millet & B. Lepage. As reported by Bob, it ’s hard to say
whether he misunderstands the man of genius or the man of
talent, art or nature, intention or accomplishment, worse.
Make me the art-critic of the P.M.G. I I would T. T.,
Esq, had a new play coming out to-morrow, that I might
show hiTTi what criticism is — ^what it is to be right. For
God’s sake make me an art-critic. What with you. Bob,
& Legros, I could thrive,’

No one who has read Henley’s Views and Reviews will agree
that he needed tuition in art criticism.

From Colvin, about Deacon Brodie [Spring 1880] :
‘ Deacon went to Clayton on Saturday — so as to reach him
on that day. I hoped you would have heard by this. You
are certain, I think, to hear soon. I shall be in town

W E. HENLEY

123

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and will ask for a long jaw one
of thos^ days. ... If there were time for the Clajdon ex-
periment to come (as I hope it won’t come) to nothing first,
it might still be worth while to get up this performance. —
But of course the Mary scene must be written in. A little
more phosphorus, and you’E work it ofi all right. The
draft you have is better than you think ; at least, those
lines and none other, with the speeches amplified and sus-
tained, are the right, just human and natural lines for it
to go on; of that I am certain, with the imalterable
certainty of what, as I put it to myself, is actual experience.
— Have you read Coquelin’s L’Art et le ComMiml The
red-ribbon sillmess apart, it is one of the cleverest and
justest pieces of work I have read for many a day. — ^Also
I ’ve read Cannosine . — Consequently have heaps to jaw
about. — And here is a letter from Louis. Will he live ?
win he die ? He has taken quite the right measure of his
Thoreau ; only it is a shade more sententious than he
thinks.’

Clayton was John Clayton, the actor.

The essay on Thoreau appeared first in the CornhiU, and
afterwards in Familiar Studies of Men and Books.

From Colvin to Henley [April 18, 1880] : ‘ A letter from
Mrs. O. . . . Louis has been, and is, dangerously iU. The
letter isn’t to me, but I expect it will be sent on to you. It is
confused, but refers to a worse time, not specified, when she
had got "her own doctor’’ to make a "most thorough
examination ’’ of him (that can only be the same examma-
tion about which he wrote to you in that cheery fashion).
Doctor had at first thought there could be no hope, but
afterwards " said he could save him, though it would be
with the greatest difficulty.’’ “ In five weeks, he said,
there would be a wonderful improvement ’’ — “ after which,
Louis is to go to the mountains ’’ (that means irmgs). “ A
sea-vo3rage would simply kill him at once in the present
state of his health.” “ No work to be done meantime,”
and money would be wanted. Money, therefore, had been

124 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

asked for from home. “Decidedly better” at time of
writing. “ I am tr3ring to take care of my dearest boy, and
do believe that he is not only going to be better soon, but
in time quite well.” '

From Colvin [May 5, 1880] : ‘ I Ve two letters from Louis
at once ; you, I expect, have a letter and a scenario. Does he
tell you about the £250 a year which his people promise ? —
that ’s a big weight off our hearts — and about his plans for
a home in the hills ? — ^which are all very well, but look like
anything rather than like coming back to the old country. . . .
I broached to the Carrs the idea of a Warner reading
of the Deacon in their house : at first they jumped at it ;
but I wouldn’t let them settle until they had read it, and
therefore sent them the piece.’

Colvin had failed to interest John Clayton in Deacon
Brodie. Warner was Charles Warner, famous as Coupeau
in Drink, the English version of Zola’s L’Assommoir.

It was very shortly after this, on May 19, 1880, that
Stevenson and Mrs. Osbourne were married.

From Henley [May 21, 1880] : ‘ Last night, late, the
enclosed from Morley. I was in three minds to send the
ticket back, with a polite hint that he had my permission
to retire hup. Of course I conquered the impulse, & to-night
I shall leave my Berlioz, & go in unto lolanthe. My own
opinion of my fortune is poor. I wouldn’t give sixpence for
my chance with J. M. ; I shall find that person’s finger
thicker than the Gay one’s loins. As he cut my “ Whole
Duty,” so, I am positive, he has suppressed my Swinburne
altogether & my Blackmore as well. I am very sorry indeed,
for, if it is so, it means ruin. However, je m’en fiche I
‘ Here 's a sigli for those who love me
And a smile for those who hate.

And whatever sky’s above me.

Here 's a heart for every fate—'

whether it calls itsdf John Morley or Walter Good, or — ^no
matter what. Meanwhile, of course I ain’t so gay & free as
I pretend to be. I diaU go & see Morley to-morrow, & ask

W. E. HENLEY 125

about the French plays. If they, too, are to be done on
approve — bon soir /

' Let me see you soon. Life is a bore unless one has a
heritage of some sort. A good wooden spoon, now ? What
say you to a good wooden spoon ? I wish I had had one.
In the meantime, j’ai des amis et j’ai une femme — & life is
— ^well, it ’s devilish enviable.'

I interpolate some mixed Colvin letters here. Lhis, in
August 1880, refers to the book on Landor which he
had been commissioned by John Morley to write for the
‘ EnglMi Men of Letters Series ’ : —

' My dear Henley, — Life is not the least worth having
at its present rate, at least for me, of busytude. I got back
from Paris on Wednesday night, spent Thursday in town —
the whole mortal day taking Landor notes at the B.M. and
elsewhere, which I have since lost ; no time for Coupeau,
no time for talk, nothing — came back here on Friday, and
have been up to the eyes in work and correspondence ever
since. Work which don't pay either ; that is to say learned
contribution — real old out-and-out Bummkopf — to the
Journal of the new Society for Hellenic Studies, in which
I 'm going to publish three (ugly) unpublished vases, and a
text that 'U just knock down the entire human species by
its leamedness. That 's what 's the matter with me, —
that, and entertaining a pack of beastly medicoes belonging
to the Association, which meets here this week, — until the
20th; from which date I dedicate myself for six weeks
without a break to the complete writmg of ye immortal
Landor ; first three weeks, most likely, at his own old
home of Llanthony in South Wales ; next three weeks, here.
After which my lecture work will be beginning again. So
no holiday for the likes of me.

‘ I am most anxious to hear your view of Coupeau as you
were going (I was told) to see it at the Surrey. Also to
know if the melodrammy is under weigh. Still more to
know whether your liver is bett^— was so sorry to hear of

126 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

its being bad. — Found the article on the littler cardinals ;
gooA ; but see, Yates [in the World} never has any formal
reviews, only Book-Table, or Paper-Cutter, or some such
rubbish. It ought to make a right good Sat. Rev. article ;
do you think I may try there ?

‘ Saw no play at Paris — would have gone to Garin, but
was engaged to dme, and the next night, being very tired
with Bummkopf — researching and hunting up of draughts-
men and lithographers, chose, instead of the Gendre de M.
Poirter, an open-air dinner in the Champs Elys6es and an
early bed. Saw no actors in the flesh either, but had a
great pleasure in seeing again my old and fast friend Rado-
witz (future Chancellor of German Empire — you bet). My
first and probably last intermixtion in politics consisted,
two years ago, in establishing a curious kind of friendship-
before-acquaintance between him and Gambetta, the coming
and the come statesmen of Europe. Curious, but true.

‘ Had a fearful ironical sell on the way out. Ellen Terry
travelled with her chicks to Boulogne by the same boat
with me, and without her husband, who is the green-eyed
monster incarnate. There was my chance, to have a good
time and make myself of service to the gifted and engaging ;
which I proceeded to do ; but lo, the sea uprose, and while the
gifted and engaging continued to beam, the most devoted
of her servants and adorers had to interrupt his assiduities,
and go off to lie down dejectedly beside the gimwale, with
a cheek from which its genial glow had departed. — ^And
as the G. and E. is not deficient in the sense of humour,
she must have fuUy appreciated the situation.

‘ This is a long jaw, for a man who considers himself busy,
but it may be my last for some dajre. — Oh, did you hear
that Louis had written his people he hoped his health would
enable him, travelling by easy stages, to reach England by
the middle of September ? That sounds pretty dicky, I ’m
afiraid. Write to me. — ^Yours ever, S. C.’

G. and E. meant probably Gifted and Engaging.

W. E. HENLEY

127

The next letter is very interesting. Mr. and Mrs. R. L.
Steven^n, sailing from New York on August 7, 1880, had
just arrived at Liverpool :

‘ My dear Henley, — I have behaved like a brute beast
to you ; but such, as you pretty well know by this time, are
the ways of the animal. Only it has been worse than usual
because I had things to say which you would have wished
to hear. Did you know that I went off to meet Louis and
his fanuly at their landing ? — suddenly made up my mind
at dinner here last Monday, took the night mail, and was
just in time to welcome them at early morning on the quays
of the grey Mersey. They were pleased, and I was glad
to have gone, though I ’m not sure that I should have done
so had I known that the old folks were going too. However
the said old folks were not enterprising enough to go down
to the river, so that in point of fact mine was their first
greeting. And I stopped four or five hours and lunched
with the united family — old Mrs. Stevenson (who looks the
fresher of the two), young Mrs. Stevenson, old Mr. Stevenson,
Mr. Louis Stevenson, and Sam — who distinguished himself
(it ^ould be said in passing that he is not a bad boy) by
devouring the most enormous luncheon that ever descended
a mortal gullet.

‘ I daresay it made things pleasanter my being there ;
and I ’m bound to say the old folks put a most brave and
most kind face on it indeed. They were all going off by
way of Edinburgh to the West Highlands — I wonder whether
you 've heard from Louis since ; but I suppose of course you
have. It was too soon to tell yet how he really was ; in
the face looking better than I expected, and improved by his
new teeth ; but weak and easily fluttered, and so small
you never saw, you could put your thumb and finger round
his thi^. On the whole he didn’t seem to me a bit like a
dying man in qiite of eveiything. It would have done, and
'will do, your heart good to shake hands with him again.

‘ The plan is, or was on Tuesday, that they are all to be

128 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

in the West Highlands till towards mid-September ; then
Louis and family coming to town or neighbourly)od, for
a month ; then somewhere (uncertain where) in a warm
climate for the winter. When I had him alone talking in
the smoking room it was quite exactly like old times ; and
it is clear enough that he likes his new estate so far all
right, and is at peace in it ; but whether you and I will
ever get reconciled to the little determined brown face and
white teeth and grizzhng (for that ’s what it ’s up to)
gnzzling hair, which we are to see beside him in future —
that is another matter.

' We didn’t talk much about work — ^he has been able to
do almost nothing for some time — ^but I saw the blank-
verse poems he wrote when he was very bad to his friends :
they ’re fetchmg (to you and me) but not very good ; two
of them are going to appear in the Attatiitc Monthly.

‘ Am oft at cockcrow tomorrow morning for fresh air
and the genius loa at lianthony and the neighbourhood ;
am taking tons of books, and mean to come back tomorrow
three weeks weighing 14 stone and with half my Landor
finMied. Let me have news of you. Address P.O.
Abergavenny, S. Wales. Yours ever, S. C.’

In September, from Lianthony Abbey, Landor’s old
home : ‘ Landor has been on the go too ; not so fast as I
could have wished ; but every page goes faster than the last,
and I have a real hold of it and could almost ^out 370U
the book from title to colophon ; colophons are unluckily
no longer in use, but they sound nice. — ^From Bummkopf
and Landor together I 've only had. three whole holidays at
all ; one on the way to, and one on the way back from,
Lianthony, and one to do a big day’s walk while we were
there. Lianthony is one of the most beautiful places in the
world ; one of the most winning in fine weather and repel-
ling in bad ; we had it aU fine, and were happy, but not idle
enough.

' Lianthony ^all have three pages in the immortal work.

W. E. HENLEY

129

Llanthony, and a young woman with eyes, who wanted
sometl^g for her album, produced the following, see
separate enclosure. Poesy with me is a pure sign of im-
becility. I only wish it w^asn’t with somebody else [R. L. S.]
a sure sign of ill health. That line of L.'s to you is to my
mind quite discouraging, and I have a great fear that he
has got his death blow.’

Here are the Album verses, the only example of Colvin’s
muse that I have been able to find : —

'Extempore effusion, composed while waiting for the
midday meal at Llanthony Abbey, August 30, 1880, in
answer to the request of a young lady who desired a
contribution to her album.

‘iV.S. — The critical mind will perceive that the
young lady is herself supposed to be the speaker.

‘ Beneath the shade of Cambnan hills,

While August air the valley fills
With music of the woods and nils,

I take my hohday.

Amid the rum'd aisles and piers,

Where holy men in other years
Abode with onsons and tears,

I play my summer play.

' What do I play at ^ Who can tell ?

X-awn tenms I could play at well.

But tennis nets in Honddu deli
Are none : instead of this
I ride or sketch or smg or chat.

Or stroll, or shoulder httle Matt,

Whose cheek is clean enough to pat.

Not clean enough to kiss;

‘ Or tease papa, who salhes out
To brmg us home a dish of trout.

But bnngs instead, poor dear, the gout,

And limps with padded toe ;

Or take this book, where here a friend.

And there another, rhymes has penned.

And read them o’er, and where they end.

Ask prettily for mo’.*

I

130 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Ahem I I should like to know if that is not a contribu-
tion to the elegant literature of my country.’

Henley’s next letter is chiefly concerned with Colvin’s
monograph on Landor in its published form in i88i. I
keep the Landor portions for later quotation and retain here
only the other part * ‘ Louis’ story, “ The Merry Men,” is
first-chop indeed. It contains some stunning dialogue,
heaps of good descriptive writing, no end of real imagina-
tion, & a character who is a veritable creation. You
will enjoy it greatly, & be prouder of our yoimg man than
ever. He is not, I am sorry to add, so well as he ought to
be ; but of that we are not to speak. I go on hopmg for
the best ; & as aU that ’s the matter with him is a slight
cold, I don’t see that I ’m wrong.

‘ Oscar’s book has come out at last. The Athenceum
wigged it horrid. A writer in the D.N. whom I suspect to
be Lang, was more kindly, but scoffed at it too. It seems,
by the extracts I ’ve seen, to be tolerably putrid. Oscar’s
self-sufficiency is the best thing about him, so far as I
know. You think differently, I am aware : but I can’t
help fanc 3 nng that your indomitable charitableness leads
you astray. At aU events, I can’t believe that anyone
worth a rush would have allowed himself to print such
stuff as I have seen quoted. It ’s a pity ; for the young
fellow seems to have had good parts to begin with. What
he has done with ’em I don’t like to think. His is a strange
figure, truly, & one that painted at full length — ^hke
Rastignac’s, for instance ; or like Barry L 3 mdon’s — ^would
be uncommonly interesting. Had I seen what you have
seen, & lived abroad as you have lived, I might be tempted
to try it. I should at worst produce the history of a very
odd & fantastic movement & sketch the outline of a very
odd & fantastic career. Don’t you think it ou^t to be
done, & well— that is to say dispassionately & temperately
& cruelly — done ?

* TaUdng of Barry L 3 mdon reminds me that I ’ve seen '
& met & talked with Sheil Barry the actor. I wrote a

W. E. HENLEY

131

flaming account of his Gaspard in Les Cloches de Corneville
some years ago ; & Teddy [Henley’s brother Edward, an
actor] found that he thought it the best thing ever writ
about himself— an opinion with which, on reperusal, I am
disposed to agree. So I went to the Crystal Palace & saw
him play Danny Mann in the Colleen Bawn and Harvey
Duff m the Shaughraun : two magnificent performances,
the work of a man who ’s an actor in every fibre. We had
a good long talk, & I found him a very quiet, modest, &
intelligent man — as different from Warner, and from what
I hear of Irving, as light is from dark. I feel sure that we
shall be friends, for I like him much. And I feel sure that
if I do not die, & can only get fairly on to the drama, P shall
make him a part in which he’ll be the talk of London.
Meanwhile he is an Irish comedian. Teddy admires him
passionately, & I was glad to find that he thinks well of
Teddy. This is one reason why I was so anxious that
the lad should go touring with Boucicault, to whom the
little man is for the moment indispensable. He promised
to come & see me ere he left, but he hasn’t been, & I 'm
more disappointed than I can say. However, the tour is
to be but six weeks long, & I shall see him on his return
no doubt. I can’t help thinking that I ’ve found my man
in him ; for he ’s not addicted to sympathetic parts, is
longing to get on, & has pluck {O Landor, forgive us !) &
strength & act enough for anything. In fact, if I weren't
so stupid over the Russian play, I think I 'd start on my
“ Admiral Guinea ” at once. You don’t know the admiral,
do you ? I don’t yet. But I think he may one day be a
good deal on the spot.

' I dined on Wednesday with Austin Dobson — for whom
I have a great liking & esteem & who seems, I am proud to
say, to think well enough of me — & an Amraican journalist,
a J.Brander Mathews. He, the A. J., is a rum creature. He
reminded me of a Bas-Bleu in bags. I know the Americans
now, thank you. They have plenty to say & no remarks
to offer, but they are. before all things. Up to the Mark.

132 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

That 's their great quality. Henry James is the supreme
expression of it. Mathews is Up to the Mark, too ; Jiut in

another style & to a less degree He was full of amiability,

& volunteered any amount of assistance in the States. When
this was made plain to me, I began asking for information
for Lotus’ sake. I found his “ Whitman ” & his ‘‘ Thoreau ”
very well known & very highly esteemed in the States ; I
heard that for the “ B. Franklin ” he has in view there
would be instant & splendid sale : & it was intimated to me
that if he would print his Americanisms m a volume for
sale in the States he would make a good thing of it. The
idea indeed is admirable. I have communicated it to
Louis. There 's much more to say about it, of course ;
but say it by letter I can’t. You shall hear all when you
return.

' Bob is well. He is bent on the figure & on portraiture.
Legros has been careering round with lonides in a yacht.
Anthony has painted another picture, & is burning to get
at Geo. Howard with it, & with the preceding one, which
is yet unsold. Baxter has gone daft over Piranesi, with
whose etchings he wiU decorate his dining-room, while with
three Canalettos he proposes to adorn his drawing-room.
I am excessively poor, excessively idle, excessively hopeless,
& excessively careless. I have been going to write an
article — a CornhiUer, I hope — ^next week any time since you
left ; & I haven’t begun it yet. The Chitelaine is well
in body & mind. Our love to you & everyone. A note
will please us much, however brief it may be.'

Oscar Wilde’s book was his Poems. Stevenson never
carried out his project to write a study of Benjamm Franklin.
The essays on Thoreau and Whitman, reprinted for
periodicals, will be found in FamtUar Studies of Men and
Books. Bob, Stevenson’s cousin, in 1882 was to join
Henley’s staff on the Magazine of Art, and become known
as one of the most sensitive art critics of his time, Anthony
was Henley’s artist brother; Teddy, his actor brother.

That is the last letter from Henley which Colvin pre-

W. E. HENLEY

133

served, until those of the year 1895 ; but Henley kept
letter^from Colvin written constantly until 1885. Extracts
from these will be found later in this book.

I close this chapter with Colvin’s appreciation of the
Magazine of Art, to which he was a steady contributor :
‘ Hooray for the mag. It ’s a first-rate [one], and the firm
is an ungrateful firm if it don’t vote a testimonial of several
thousand pounds and an epergne to the editor.’

CHAPTER XI

LANDOR IN THE ‘ ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS SERIES ’

1880-1882

This is the letter in which, early in 1879, John Morley
invited Colvin to contribute a volume to his ‘English
Men of Letters Series,’ leaving the choice to him : ‘ Long
ago,’ he says, ‘ ^ould I have written, but in the first place
we did not know how far the success of the early volumes
would encourage us to go on. Well, that is now settled.
Nothing could be more satisfactory.’

Colvin having chosen Walter Savage Landor, Morley
replied thus : ‘ I close with your proposal of Landor, most
cheerfully. He will make an excellent subject. Only let
me petition you to give us plenty of the man himself, letters,
talks, and personality generally. S3nnonds’ Shelley seems
to me a model of what one of our books ought to be.

‘ Of course I quite rmderstand that you are to take your
own time, and there is no sort of hurry. But it would be
perhaps as well if you could name some sort of date — say a
year hence, or eighteen months, or what you please — ^just
to give my hopes a happy tinge of definiteness.

‘ Length, then, not less than 180 pp. — ^nor more than 200
pp. Give us as many extracts as you please.

‘ I am delighted to add you to my band, for many
reasons.

‘ The Dean’s [Dean Church] Spenser goes to the printer
next week — else you should have taken him, with pleasure,
pp. W. H.] Myers’ Virgil is talked about in a way that
OTi^t to please his friends.

* Jebb is going to do Bentley for my series.’

134

LANDOR

135

Hie Landor duly appeared in 1881, and among the letters
are seyeral that bear upon this accomplished study, none
more interesting than the very long one, in two parts, from
Henley, to which I have referred and which I now quote :
'The Landor turned up yesterday. I read it very care-
fully, & with immense pleasure. It is an admirable bit
of work, & does you honour, & no mistake. The style
is wonderfully easy & smooth. Sc wonderfuBy ludd &
expressive ; & you know your man. Oh yes, you know
him very weE indeed ; and you make us know him too. I
congratulate you with all my heart, & wish with all my
heart you were set at some more work of the same sound,
authoritative, entirely human type.

‘ The final chapter would have been a loss indeed. All
thanks to Morley who allowed you to retain it. I forgive
him his Old Friend ; I forgive him his Mediaevahsm even.
All thanks to you, too, for your definition of Style. I see
you were thinking of me when you formulated it. Were
you not ? An3rway I think you were, I shall make much
use of it.

‘ Honestly, I think your Landor the most vivid & human
book of all the series. I have a great admiration for
Stephen's Johnson, it 's true ; but I haven’t read it since
it came out, & I may be mistaken about it. If I am you
must forgive me. But I think more of it than of any one
of its companions excepting your Landor.

‘ I must add that I don’t at all agree with your estimate
of Landor as a creative & dramatic artist. As an artist in
style you have done nobly & brilliantly by him. You are
no end good about his verse, though I think your “ titanic ”
& so forth, as applied to such marmoreal Ossianisms as
Gehir Sc Count Jidian a httle my eye. But I am a bit dfe-
appointed by your treatment of Landor the (so-called)
dramatist. I can’t but disagree with your estimate of him,
& qualify this particular element in his genius very much.
It appears to me that Landor was a man of vast capacity,
but that he never cared to rightly understand the meaning

136 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

of the word “ dramatic,” & that, for all his gifts of fancy &
intelligence & imagmation, he is no more a dramatist than
most of us. That quality of disconnectedness which you
note as a principal attnbute of his is as fatal to his dramatic
power as to his power of argument & his power of narrative.
His scenes — even at their most dramatic, at their most “ in-
tense,” at their most “ passionate ” — are never scenes. If
they advance, it is in their author’s despite, & by circuitous
routes & after retreats & digressions innumerable. They
are not scenes ; they are mere talks — they are what Landor
called them m fact, “ Imaginary Conversations.” And to
set them up for drama, & their author for the nearest Shake-
speare, seems to me to misunderstand drama & to be not
very good at Shakespeare.

‘Landor was much too personal, too passionate, too
egoistic, & (I think) too selfish to be dramatic. If I were
not afraid of your sending me an oimce of dynamite in your
answer to this, I would add that perhaps, also, he was a
little too stupid. I mistrust those groans & tears of his ;
they remind me of the real emotion that kills the actor ;
they are honourable enough to the man, but they rather
bust the artist. I am afraid that what he did, when he set
himself to write such a conversation as the “ Libraries of
■^psania” (for instance), was the reverse of what he ought
to have done. He felt a good deal /or bis characters, but
he did not feel miA them ; he was satisfied with the impres-
sion they were produdng upon him, & took no care of the
impression they should have been producing on each other ;
he worked, in fact, stupidly & selfiddy, like the solid,
generous-hearted, blundering old British Lion that he was.
And he fails to impose any sort of conviction upon me
either that he imderstood the nature & object of emotional
portraiture, or that he apprehended to any considerable
estent the characta: of the emotional processes of the men
& women he chose to think he was portraying. The
“ Leofric & Godiva ” is one long proof of this. Leofric is
Landor. & Godiva is Landor ; the talk engaged in between

LANDOR

137

them has no veiy obvious raison d’etre, & starts from nowhere
to endjiowhere. It contains some beautiful things in the
way of emotion, & still more beautiful things in the way of
expression. But it is too full of impertmences & irrele-
vancies, of lapses & breaks, of blunders & ineptitudes even,
to be called drama. And to me, except as a piece of writing
— not of dramatic writmg, mind you, for in dramatic
wnting I should ask for more of swiftness & less of weight,
for more of variableness & appropriateness & less of majesty
& fulness, for more matter & less of manner — ^it hardly
seems creative art at all. It is stenography in marble, it
is reporting on a bronze tablet, if you will. But it lacks
thrOl & tact & movement ; it lacks passion & height & apt
& definite imagination ; that selectiveness (you know what
I mean) which all we English want so much is apparent,
not in the matter — for the old boy seems to have set down
pretty much what came uppermost as it came — ^but only
in the manner. And you call this drama ? My eye, sir,
my eye !

‘ It is odd that, having put your finger on that quality of
disconnectedness aforesaid & bowled over Landor as an
arguist & a story-teller with it, you should not have seen
that such a quality must needs be doubly fatal to him as a
dramatist. If he could not contrive to imagine a sequence
of fe.cts, how do you suppose he was to imagine a logical
sequence of emotions ? The truth is, my Colvin, that your
admiration for Landor as a writist has somewhat got the
better of your better judgement as a critic of the creative
in art. You seem to me to have approadied the old man
in a glow of admiration, &: to have taken one or two of his
bladders for lanterns. I wish we had talked these " Con-
versations ” over more fully, book in hand, ere you wrote.
And I wi^, too, that I ’d minded my Couni Julian better.
Ihat scene you quote ought to have settled the dramatist
with you for ever. It is really too stupid. No man could
gravely write & as gravely publMi that for passion & for a
scene, & ever beatme a dramatic poet. It proves the root

138 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

of the matter to have been out of him It proves him to
have been unmtelligent as far as drama & the human heart
are concerned. It proves his imagination to have been
rather a creation— a resultant, so to speak, of Alfieri, & the
Roman temper, & the Greek tragics, & the English want of
taste— rather than a natural quality. And it proves that
he didn't always know what he was writing, nor why he
wrote it, & that he was capable both of missing his aim &
misjudging his means.

‘ A great artist in style ? By aU means. You do not say
a word too mudi about him there, though, as it seems to
me, you are perhaps not critical enough of his fondness for
interjections & exclamatory sentences. But a great artist
in sentiment & emotion ? Not if I know it. His own
instinct was lighter than yours, for he called his work
Imaginary Conversations. Let them stay at that ; & they
will do nobly. Claim much more for them, & you 'U oblige
me to become a senous personage, & formulate the drama,
& take to lecturing you. Which would be dreadful.

‘ It 's for this reason that I love my Epicurus & his two
girls, & my Caesar & Lnctdlus. There 's no pretence at
drammy tWe. It’s all Landor pure & simple; every-
thing is apt, cheerful, stately, discursive, broken, impetuous,
irrational, & splendid ; a talk of the golden-mouthed gods.
Decidedly, I am a better judge of literature than you.
Than you, even! O Sidney Colvin, M.A., & Fellow of
Trinity I Than you — than you — than you ! Think of that,
& be confounded.

‘ Now I 'E go drink a whiskey & soda, & go to bed. I
am tired, & it 's doosid late. Good night.’

‘ Sunday Ntght.

‘ To go back to our text. You seem to have seen that
there was something wrong about Landoris drama, for you
advise readers not to hanker after stage directions, but to
wade in & read between the lines. It is not the absence’
of stage directions, you may rely upon it, that plugs us up ;

LANDOR

139

it is, as I have said, the non-dramatic quahty, the discon-
nectedness, the solutions of emotional continuity. And
nothing else.

‘ Looking over what I 've said, & remembering what I 've
written elsewhere, I perceive myself a pedant, & could
almost resolve never to say a word about the drama more.
I seem to credit myself with a monopoly of the dramatic
fakement, don’t I ? It 's really abominable, & I ’ll leave
off talking about the subject. If I don’t, you ’ll have
my blood one of these days ; & if you don’t somebody else
will. So please look upon this as my last appearance as a
dramatic critic.

‘ One of the great virtues of your work, my dear Colvin,
is it ’s excellent humanity and the pleasant & wholesome view
of life it sets forth. You are full of felicities of all sorts ;
but none are more fehcitous than those that treat of
morality. In one passage, where you speak of the “ domestic
artist,” I hke to think you had the Chitelaine in view as
you wrote. Whether or no, I am particularly pleased with
it ; & there are many others. As I said last night, your
book is a real one, & you may well be proud on ’t.

‘ A remark to make : — I am grateful to you for proving
indubitably that if Landor had been a contemporary, he 'd
have been as determined a Jingo as Louis, as I, or as A. C. S.
[Swinburne] himself. . . .’

Mrs, Henley was the Chatelaine.

This IS the definition of style in the Landor book : ‘ But
harmony and rh3dhm are only the superficial beauties of
a prose style. Style itself, in the full meaning of the
word, depends upon something deeper and more inward.
Style means the instinctive rule, the innate principle of
selection and control, by which an artist shapes and regu-
lates every expression of his mind.’

Among the other letters is this from Sir George
Trevdyan : ‘ I have twice tried, first to read, and then to
read in, Forster, Your book is just what a book should be.
None the less am I of the vulgar with regard to Landor’s

140 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

writings. The only things I can read at all with pleasure
are the little bits you take from his poetry. Even those
selections you make from his prose do not affect me. There
always seems to me to be nothing to get out of him, in the
sense in which you get something out of Fra Lippo Lippi,
Bishop Blougram, or the conversations in Quenttn Durward.
But I cannot help thinkmg that even m this we do not
disagree.’

From the author of The Angel in the House • —

‘ Hastings, July 20, 1881.

‘ My dear Colvin, — I have just received your book on
Landor and thank you much for it. I hope it may do some-
thing towards making known the best prose writer since
Hooker. But there is a charm about what is sincerely good
that secures it being overlooked and neglected even by
the best. Even they pass such a spirit by sa3dng, as it
were, to themselves : " This is none of us. We do not
meddle with it. It is only a god." — Yours very truly,

‘ Coventry Patmore ’

In the following letter we meet with a name of great
distinction in Victorian days. Sir Henry Taylor, author of
Philip van ArteveMe and grandfather of the Colvins’ very
intimate friend Mrs. J. L. Garvin : —

‘ The Roost, Bournemouth,

‘ 13 Jany. 1882.

‘ Dear Mr. Sydney Colvin, — It has been a great pleasure
to me to read yt Life of Landor & as I think you could not
write it in the way it is written without taking an interest
ia everything relating to the subject, I will give you an
account of the only two interviews I had with Landor after
the death of Southey. I was staying with a friend at
Kiloten Knoll about three mil^ from Bath, & I called upon
landor to ask him whether he would allow ^uthey’s Letters
to him to be published with Southey’s Correspondence. I
was ^own into an empty drawing room, & standing by

LANDOR

141

the fireplace I saw over the chinmey piece a painting of
Landor’s house & grounds at Fiesole. Presently Landor
came down-stairs; we shook hands, 8c I pointed to the
picture & said I had passed by the place on my road from
Florence to Fiesole & had admired it very much : — “ Yes,”
he said, " a beautiful place, a charming place, I was very
sorry to leave it, but my wife used me so ill I was obliged
to come away.” Then we went round the room to see a
considerable collection of pictures on the walls. I expressed
my admiration of a landscape by Wilson. He said : — “ You
shall have it.” I demurred & declined, as being in no way
entitled to such a gift. He said no more, but the next day
made his appearance at Kiloten Knoll with the picture,
which is now hanging on the wall of my dining room of my
house at East Sheen.

‘ These two interviews were the first & last of what I
saw of Landor. In previous years I had talked about him
with Southey, who descnbed him as “ a man of clear intellect
& insane temper.” Your life of him is in accord with that
description. Those who take the interest that I do in his
works have much to thank you for. — Believe me. Yours

‘HekeyTavior-

The following letter from Fleeming Jenldn, Colvin’s
friend and later the subject of Stevenson’s biography, is
an example of the literary criticism of a man of intellect
who was not by calling or practice a literary man : —

‘ Glen Morven, Augt. 2, 1881,

‘ Morven, N.B.

’ My dear Colvin, — I have just read with great interest
& pleasure your life of Landor. I have for long time been
curious concerning him and his writings, and you have
told me what I wished to know and by your telling, you have
conciliated me (for I own to a natural antipathy to the man
you wrote of). I feel sure you have written very honestly
and with a perception of all your hero’s failings, and with

142 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

a human perception of them which quite disarms me. There
are very few biographies I would rank higher thap this &
those which I would so rank owe very much to the subject
chosen. Not but that Landor is a good subject — and one
which might have led many men astray but, I never read
any life in which kind taste, kindly reticence so naturally
and wholesomely combined with honest outspokenness.
All I ought to know, you tell me. Many things I see there
are which might have been told, which might have given
pain to many — none of these are told and I wish to hear
none of them.

' I agree to an amazing extent with your literary criti-
cism and on the one point on which I differ, I feel it is almost
hopeless to speak, for the statement can only be dogmatic
assertion on the one side or the other and you have a much
better right to make dogmatic assertions in literature than
I have.

‘ But a man ’s a man for a’ that and cannot but have his
opinion & you probably take enough interest in humanity
at large to be faintly interested even in my hterary
impressions.

‘ I have only one fault to find with Landor but a great
one —

‘ to me Landor seems wholly deficient in truth of imagina-
tion. The irritation which I invariably feel when reading
his conversations arises from this — I make no cavil about
the sedateness of his style, nor about the gaps left without
stage directions. On the second reading (and all good
dramatic writings require at least a second reading) I can
supply and would willingly supply these ; but when I have
supphed them, when I have Godiva off her horse at the
proper moment I still feel that she and her husband are
often saying what no human being ever said or could say
under the circumstances— and if I feel this in a dialogue
which contains occasional passages which are not only
beautiful, but which a woman could say (as for the man.
No No No) you can suppose what my feelings are in reading

LANDOR

143

the utterances given to a Henry vin. or any other man
whom I^andor hates. I had supposed that Landor’s imagina-
tion was verbal, but your book teaches me that he really
did imagine the people, & that with tears and laughter I
am surprised — you see the falseness of his humour. Well !
to me the pathos seems quite as false. The noble things
his heroes say are usually as little like an3rthing which I can
imagine a man saying as the funny or giddy thmgs his
funny & giddy people are made to utter.

‘ Of course whether you or I be right depends simply on
the relative truth of our imaginative ear — I cannot make
you believe a note is out of tune if you do not hear the dis-
cord. You cannot make me hear a harmony if my ear is
too sluggish. What, however, confirms me in my impres-
sion is this. I perceive every merit you claim for your
writer except this one — the nakedness far from being repul-
sive has charm for me. The general line of thought is
quite in harmony with my own. I have no quarrel with
him because his Pericles is not any Pericles, his Henry viii,
not any Henry viii but simply because bis pictures of these
people are pictures of dummies not of human beings. I
see Landor speaking behind an ugly mask with quite a
schoolboy's pleasure in making the objects of his antipathy
sp^k in a way which shall be loathsome. I hear Landor
bdng charming & humane & playful (Ah !) behind a pretty
mask which he calls by some nice woman's name. Conse-
quMitly it is only in those dialogues where Landor's opinions
have weight that I can enjoy him at all. All his critical
dialogues give me pleasure — ^none of his political none of
his dramatic. I can read all about “ prodame ” & Vail with
interest but I dance about in agony over Joan of Arc &
Agnes Sorel — and such admiration as I give to parte of this
dialogue or LeoMc & Godiva would be given equally if the
speaker were avowedly Landor.

‘ The life and the writings of the man are to me all of a
'piece — ^the intention admirable — ^the shortcomings deplor-
able— and due to the same cause, lack of imaginatiouH-not

144 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

knowing how things would be — not being able to project him-
self into the mind of his adversary. You speak of Ins being
blinded by imagmation. I say he was blinded by the want
of it. He would reform Llanthony ! but what that meant
— what that little word reform unphed, he had no more
notion of than his bailiff ; perhaps not so much.

' I beg your pardon for this long scrawl.

‘Fleeming Jenkin’

In the following year Colvin prepared for the ' Golden
Treasury Series ' a volume of Selechons from Landor, from
the preface to which I take this illuminating passage :

' Landor had two personalities, an inner one, so to speak,
disguised by an outer ; the inner being that of a stately
and benign philosopher, the outer that of a passionate and
rebellious schoolboy. Of the external and superficial
Landor, the man of headlong impulses and disastrous mis-
apprehensions and quarrels, enough and to spare has been
said and repeated. But together with this indignant,
l^endaiy Landor, we must not forget that there existed
the other Landor, the noble and gentle heart, the rich and
bountiful nature, the royally courteous temper, which won
and held the loving admiration of spmts like Southey and
the Hares, like Leigh Hunt and Forster and Dickens, like
Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and even of one so grudg-
ing of admiration as Carlyle. That Landor's inner and
nobler self had little hold on or government over his other
self must be admitted. From his nature’s central citadel,
to use a mediaeval figure, of Pride, High Contemplation,
and Honourable Purpose, he failed to keep ward over its
outlying arsenals of Wrath, which Haste and Misjudgment
were for ever wantonly igniting, to the ruin of his own
fortunes, and the dismay of his neighbours and well-
widbers.’

Although chronologically out of place, I am disposed to
insert here two very interesting letters from Mr. George*
Mocne. I give them in full : —

LAl^DOR 145

' 12 1 Eburff Street, London, S W.,
March 8 th, 1917.

' Dear Sir Sidney Colvin, — I daresay that you remember
that it was your Kttle book about Landor, little in size, but
great in qu^ty, that set me reading him. After exhaust-
ing your extracts, I bought another volume of extracts,
and when these were exhausted I turned to the complete
edition and every fortnight a volume comes to me from the
Lending Library in Buckingham Palace Road. It seems
to me now that I should like to have an edition of Landor
of my own, and I am writing to ask you which is the best
edition to buy. I should like to have the poems as weE as
the conversations.

‘ And now. Sir Sidney, I have to thank you for your
edition of Stevenson’s letters, which have given me the very
greatest pleasure, revealing Stevenson to me even more
perfectly than Travels mth a Donkey, An Inland Voyage,
Men and Books, etc. Story-telling seems to have been
outside of his talent. The moment the story commences
it seems to pare from him, to strip him of aE the quahties
that we admire. In a story we get Stevenson as if skiimed.
Perhaps I should say a skeleton Stevenson, a mummified
Stevenson. I think from your admirable explanatory
notes scattered through your edition of his letters that you
yourseE suspect that he was not a natural story-teEer, and
I am sending you a preface of a book of mine that is just
coming out. You wEi read in it an appreciation of Steven-
son that has not, I beheve appeared before. — Very sincerely
yours, George Moore ’

' 121 Ebury Street, London, S W.,
'March i^ih, 1917.

‘ Dear Sir Sidney Colvin, — I am very much obliged to
you for your advice regarding the best edition of Landor. It
win be very satisfactory for me to have all the volumes, and
.one poimd fifteen shillings is not much to pay for convey-
ance to the summits of Parnassus where he dwdls always,
K

146 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

nevar descending beyond the lower slopes. I admire half
of Stevenson very much, but I only look even upon this
half as a sort of trmket that Landor could wear on his
watch chain and which might drop off without him being
aware of the loss. You tell me that you cannot understand
my attitude of mind towards the stories. Without pro-
posing to attempt your conversion which would be an
impertinence I may say a few more words on the subject.
Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island seem to me to be the
childhood of prose narrative, the babyhood, for in my view
the difficulties of prose narrative do not begin until we intro-
duce man’s inner entity into the story. Last night I came
upon a passage in Landor which seems to state very well
this point of view. “ We do not want strange events,” he
says, " so much as those by which we are admitted into
the recesses, or carried on amid operations, of the human
mind. We are stimulated by its activity, but we are greatly
more pleased at surve3nng it leisurely in its quiescent state,
imcovered and unsuspicious. Few, however, are capable
of ctescribing or even remarking it ; while strange and un-
expected contmgencies are the commonest pedlary of the
market, and the joint patrimony of the tapsters.”

‘ There we have it. As soon as we attempt to introduce
the reader into the recesses of the human mind the diffi-
culty begins. But stories about digging in the sand are
rdated to literature very much as Mozart’s early sonatas
are related to Wagner’s Mastersingers. You will not agree
with me in this, but perhaps you will now understand my
point of view regarding Stevenson’s stories. But although
his stoiiffi seem to be purely mechanical, I greatly ad mir e
his critical discrimination. His articles in Men and Books
are as good as Sainte-Beuve, though it may be doubted if the
Frenchman would have plumed himself so ostentatiously
that he was not like poor Villon.

* You will perhaps be interested to hear that in reading
your edition of the letters the reader is as much intarested-
in you as he is in the author of the letters, and I think the

LANDOR

147

reason of this interest arises from your reticence; most
editoij of the letters would have introduced a great deal of
irrelevant matter but you refrained and the result is that
the reader sa}^ : " I should like to hear more about Colvin.”
Altogether your attitude towards Stevenson is a pleasure
to me to think about and an honour to you both. — Yours

« George Moore ’

CHAPTER XII

MRS. R. L STEVENSON’S LETTERS : I
1881-1887

There is, I think, an impression that Mrs. Sitwell and Mrs.
Stevenson were not too friendly. How true this may have
been in the early days I cannot say ; it would not have been
unnatural had Mrs. Osbourne, as she was in 1876, resented
Stevenson’s dependence upon her predecessor. But I have
no reason to suppose that she did ; and we shall see that
when the time came for them to meet, after the Stevensons
returned from California in 1880, at Davos in 1881, and
during the Bournemouth years, 1884-1887, some very affec-
tionate letters were written by Mrs. Stevenson to Mrs. Sit-
well, and I have no doubt, although none seem to exist,
that the replies were punctual and equally warm.

I am now grouping together some of the letters of the
years 1881-1887, none of which have been published before
in book form, and only a few, marked by a footnote, in
pariodical form, when in 1924 Colvin selected them for two
articles in the Empire Review in England, and in Scribner’s
Magazine in America.

As a preface let me quote Colvin’s character sketch of
Mrs. Stevenson. On their arrival in Edinburgh, he says,
after their return from California in 1880: ‘She made
an immediate conquest of them [her husband’s parents],
especially of that character so richly compounded between
the stubborn and the tender, the humorous and the grim, his
father. Thenceforth there was always at Louis’s side a wife
for his friends to hold only second in afiection to himself. A
separate bi<^phy of her by her sister has latdy appeared.

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS I 149

giving, along with many interesting details of her early life,
a picture of her on the whole softer and less striking than
that which I personally retain. Strength and staunchness
were, as I saw her, her ruling qualities ; strength and staunch-
ness not indeed masculine in their kind, but truly womanly.
Against those of his friends who might forget or ignore the
precautions which his health demanded she could be a
dragon indeed ; but the more considerate among them she
made warmly her own and was ever ready to welcome.
Deep and rich capacities were in her, alike for tragedy and
humour; all her moods, thoughts, and instincts were
vividly genuine and her own, and her daily talk, like her
letters, was admirable both for play of character and feehng
and for choice and colour of words. On those who knew
the pair first after their marriage her personality impressed
itself almost as vividly as his ; and m my own mind his
image lives scarce more indelibly than that of the small,
dark-complexioned, eager, devoted vroman his mate. In
spite of her squareish build she was supple and elastic in
aU her movements ; her hands and feet were small and
beautifully modelled, though not meant for, or used to,
idleness ; the head, under its crop of close-waving thick
black hair, was of a build and character that somehow
suggested Napoleon, by the firm setting of the jaw and the
beautifully precise and dehcate modelling of the nose and
lips : the eyes were full of sex and mystery as they changed
from fire or fun to gloom or tenderness ; and it was from
between a fine pearly set of small teeth that there came the
clear metallic accents of her intensely human and often
quaintly individual speech.’

Mrs. Stevenson’s first letter is from Davos in the winter
of 1880 : —

* My deak Mr. Colvin, — ^As Louis shows no disposition
towards letter writing, dry rot having eaten deeply into his
vitals, I feel that I must at least drop you a note to let you
know that we are living, and in good hopes of more than

ISO THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

that. Of course our arrival at once effected a change in the
climate of Davos, so that we have been living in an atmo-
sphere of fog and rain until to-day, which is clear and bright.
Even at its worst, though, Davos seems to be the place for
Louis ; I beheve if anything will cure him it is this place,
and we are greatly pleased with the doctor, in whom we feel
confidence, and who is a very pleasant gentleman. He says
that Louis has chronic pneumonia, with infiltration of the
lungs, and enlargement of the spleen. Dry rot I believe to
be consequent upon the state of Louis’s spleen, and to have
nothing to do with his mind, which is some consolation.
We find many pleasant people here, and Louis and Mr.
Symonds are, so to speak, Siamese twins.

‘ We nearly had a tragedy yesterday. Louis and I and
Watty Woggs, the dog (his name has somehow become
changed), were out for a wallc, all in the highest spirits,
Woggs especially, who somehow became entangled as to his
hind legs in a bit of circular string, which so frightened him
that he fell upon the ground in a violent fit. He seems
pretty well this morning, but we were all very much upset
by the mishap, as we have grown to love Woggs dearly. I
thmk he was very proud of the sensation he created.

' I find that I am an invalid too, though I had not guessed
it until the doctor told me. He says that I should not be
so fat, and that it (the fatness) is caused by a disease of the
stomach ; so I am put upon diet, and am going through a
course of medicine. I was so strict with Louis about obey-
ing the doctor’s orders that I believe he is glad to be able to
retaliate.

‘ We ejcpect and look forward to the promised visit at
Christmas as a certainty, so you cannot be so cruel as to
disappoint two invalids, now can you ?

‘ Give my dearest love to my pretty friend, who really
(but that you must know as well as I) grows more lovely as
time passes by. I wMi I knew how die did it. I should
Iflce to drink from the fount of perennial youth too. I will
leave room for a line from Louis.’

MRS ROBERI LOUIS bfEV EXsOX

AT THE AGE OF JO

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS- I 151

Mr. Symonds was John Addington SymOnds.

The*line from Louis is missing.

The pretty friend would be Mrs. Sitwell.

Watty Woggs was a black Scotch terrier given to Mrs.
Stevenson by Sir Walter Simpson, R. L. S.’s companion in
the Inland Voyage It was first called Walter and then
Wattle. Later, as we shall see, its name was modified.
Colvin seems to have loathed it.

The year 1881 broke very sadly for Mrs. Sitwell.

A letter from Colvin to Henley on January 7 [1881] tells the
story : ‘ If you don’t hear anything of me for the next little
while, know that it is because of a great anxiety which has
come upon us. Bertie is ill — a threatening of lung disease —
and is ordered at once to Davos with the hope (almost pro-
mise) that the taking of the trouble in time will cure it and
set him up. His mother goes, and I take her (on Simday)
as far at any rate as Paris.’

Bertie Sitwell was then eighteen and had just left Marl-
borough. Later in January he died, in his mother's arms.
Stevenson’s beautiful consolatory poem is well known, but
I quote it again : —

• IN MEMORIAM, F. A. S.

‘ Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember
How of human days he lived the better part.

Apnl came to bloom and never dun December
Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.

‘ Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being
Trod the flowery April bhthely for a while.

Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing.

Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

‘ Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished,
Yon alone have crossed the melancholy stream,

Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished
Undecaymg gladne^, nndeparted dreaim.

152

THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

* AH that hfe contams of torture, toil, and treason.

Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but a name^

Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing season,

And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came *

One more reference to young Sitwell I should like to
give. It is in the letter from Philip Bume- J ones from which
I quote — the nonsensical part — in an earlier chapter :
' You say you were glad to see me at Walton — ^What can
I say? How can I' tell you my delight if I thought my
presence could ever bring you the least gladness ! I may,
because I am a young thing, remind you dimly of the life
you loved best in the world — ^but this is all I could have
in your heart, in common vith that life — & for the rest how
deep the chasm between me & him — ^how hopeless the in-
trusion of another — that gap how impossible to fill — But
that you should in any way love me for being a young
creature — for having known Bertie & been at school with
him — is an honour which I diould consider most sacred —
& should try with all my might to make myself — the
shadow of the reahty that is gone — worthy of the affection
I still marvel you can bestow.’

The first of the new Stevenson letters, to which we now
come, is a joint letter from Braemar in the summer of
i88i

‘ My dear Mr. Colvin, — Louis asked me to write, but
for the life of me I cannot remember what he wanted me to
say ; he is in bed, adeep, I hope. I suppose the real thing
is that he only wants to have the feeling that there are
letters coming and going, and general friendliness. Let me
know, please, just when you will arrive, and I will meet
you. I don’t doubt that it can be so arranged that a bed
cm. he managed for you in the house, I can talk ,of that
when I see you. In the meantime, come on, though I fear
it will not be very pleasant for you, though your advice will
be very profitable to me in many things. Louis can hardly
talk to anyone without being very ill after it, or in fact

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS- I 153

do anything. I am quite disheartened, and in the lowest
possible spirits, so pray excuse this letter if it is not all it
should be. At any rate I mean well. I cannot even find
the paper box to get a decent sheet to write upon. Love
to all, and hoping to see you very soon, — ^Truly yours,

‘ Fanny V. de G. Stevenson ’

Here R. L. S. has written : ‘ This was what was wanted :
we have sent for an oil stove. When that comes, as it
should soon, we can warm your room for you ; and then,
maybe, we ’ll have to ask you to buy the blankets. For at
this rate there will never be any more money made by, —
Yrs. ever, R. L. S ’

Mrs. Stevenson resumes : ' My dear friend. This letter
has been lost and found again. Louis has taken cold,
which IS bad ; how bad one cannot tell for a day or two.
Pray come. But there wiU, alas, be no “ cracks ” to speak
of. A very little of that brings on either a hemorrhage
or cold sweat. Literally, not figuratively, nothing is what
Louis is able to do. It will be a disappointment to you,

I know, but ail the same, come.'

The next is also a double letter. The first part — to
“ My dear Maud ” — is to Mrs. Churchill Babington. Mrs.
Stevenson’s letter is to Mrs. SitwdL Though there is no
address or date, the letters were written at Braemar,
September 1881 :

' My dear Maud, — Many thanks indeed for the invita-
tion. A dozen things make it imposable for us to come
this time. First, Fanny has to stay some days in Edin-
burgh — ^WiU not likely get away till Tuesday. Second,

I myself, can only get to Edin*> by Thursday and have to
travd slowly and take care of myself. I am some the
worse for this abominable summer up here ; and I almost
believe I had better not go visiting ; much talk being the
mischief.

154 the C0L\'INS and THEIR FRIENDS

‘ I believe Fanny is as much disappointed as I can be ;
for I am sure she would like you, and I know she thinks
she would. As for the Professor, cela va sans dire.

‘ I ghall be sure to get a sight of parties somehow in
London ; but how, when or where I caimot yet foresee. I
have a pig-snout naso-oral respirator on my face, and look
the dismadlest figure of fim. Love to all. Ever your afft.
cousin, R. L. Stevenson’

‘ To MY DEAREST FRANCES, — We cannot come, which is a
great disappomtment to me ; and the cause, too, is a trouble.
Louis is not so well as he diould be : this place has been
poison to us all. I have been seldom so wretched as I have
been here, shut in by the hills, no doctor, and no one to
whom I could speak without reserve. I have felt sometimes
like the ancient mariner, that I must stop some one on the
street and pour out my heart to him. Fortunately I have
never met a wedding guest, or I should have at once fixed
him with my eye. I believe from what I have been told
that nature has given me the eye for that sort of demon-
stration, and it seems almost a pity to waste it. I am in
rather better spirits just now, as to-morrow we shake the
mud (not the dirt, it has been too wet for that) of Braemar
from our feet, and leave it, I hope forever. I fancy that
Davos will be our home — ^think of home at Davos — for a
pretty long time now. I do hope I shall see you and dear
[Colvin ?] in London, I do not feel as though I could go
away and not see you. Louis is in front of the window as
I write, throwing kisses from his " pig’s face." The pig’s
face was telegraphed for immediately upon Dr. Balfour’s
arrival, and is a most appalling addition to the coimtenance.
It is a respirator with tar oil in the snout, and I believe is a
good thing. I think we will be in London on Saturday or
thereabouts, [illegible] and I will stop with Bob's mother,
but Louis win only see his doctor and then go on to some,
place in the country. I felt that I see you. I do not
see how I can go on with courage, unless 1 see one of my

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : I 155

real, dear friends before I start. I fear I have got morbid ;
I cling tv the hope of seeing you more than I can teli. I
am so sorry that I could not see Maud. It made us both
quite unhappy to have to refuse her mvitation. I wi^
now, that I had not tried to wnte to you, for I meant to
write so cheerfully and gaily ; but who can be cheerful or
gay m a wet gray pit of poison ? I can only pour out my
hateful rancour. Give my love to [illegible] and to Maud,
and my regards to the Professor [Colvin again]. Don’t
trouble to write to me, dear.

‘ Fanny '

The following letter from Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell is
undated, and although the headmg of the notepaper might
lead one to range it with the letters from Davos in the
autumn of 1881 (compare with that to Sir Edmund Gosse
of November 9, 1881, from the ‘ Davos Printing Office ’
in the complete correspondence) it is almost certain that
this belongs to a later period. Compare the letter to Mrs.
Sitwell written at Hyferes m April 1883, where Stevenson
refers to the Child's Garden of Verses, then in course of
composition ; which, as in this new letter, shows that he
has asked for Mrs. Sitwell’s criticisms and has profited
by them :

‘Davos

‘PRINTING OFFICE
‘ Managed by

‘ Samuel Lloyd Osbourne & Co.

‘ The Chalet

‘My dear, Fanny would have written to you long ago
but she has been very far from well. Today is up again ;
but still rather a wreck; she has, it is thought, drain-
poisoning ; ^e had diarrhoea very bad, pain, great weak-
ness, spotted throat, and I know not aU what. I do hope
,^e will get over it soon.

‘ We are installed in the cMlet, somewhat at the mercy
of a pretty (yes — ^that is so — contradiction though it seems)

156 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

pretty Stoss servant. It is very pleasant up here on the
edge of the wood, with the valley right at our feet ; and
the air is much clearer than below. But we can scarcely
say it has yet begun to be good weather — the winter lingers ;
it comes in whiffs and goes again, leaving behind a steam-
ing, belated kind of summer. Not wholesome at all, by
fire, nor quite agreeable. I hope it will soon pass.

‘ We have just had Oscar Wilde’s incredible letter to
Colvin and have roared over it, the bad child dancing to
a T. I read his poems and found, with disappointment,
they were not even improper. This letter is his liveliest
work — ^what would not Punch give to publish it verbatim.

' T alking of Felix, do not let him work too much. I
know he does ; he was quite overworked when he came to
Scotland ; so that we were quite pained to see it. I hope
that was only London ; but he must not go on with too
much. He serves his friends too much as we all know ;
but he would be even kinder to them if he husbanded his
health.

‘ I am so glad you like the Children’s Songs ; five more
have been despatched, I do not know if they are so good.

‘ AU that you wanted done has been done, I believe.

‘ Please believe me, with all love from me and Fanny, —
Always your faithful friend,

‘ Robert Louis Stevenson ’

* I went at once and saw Miss von Glehn ; and I believe
we ^all see more of her. F. of course cannot go just now.
She tires me with the G. G. — Grisly Goose — Gaping
Gonaal — ; but of course one smiles and feigns freely. But
it is a G. G. I love not.’

1 do not identify ' G. G.,’ but Felix was one of Stevenson's
names for Colvin, and the name by which Lady Colvin
always called him. Wilde’s letter seems to have periled.

After Davos, Stevenson was ordered to the south of France.
Colvin writes to Henley, on May 20, 1882 : ‘ I am writing ‘
to Louis to-night, — ^but oh if he knew what a stru^le I have

MRS R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS; I 157

had to keep decently abreast of my duties, he would not be
vexed with me for not writing. Besides, what could I write
that would not have betrayed an anxiety which it was
essential to hide from him ? However, ■wnte I will : it is
bad enough to think that I have given him any pain under
any circumstances,

‘ I am in fear about this journey for him. It seems so
impossible that it should be made without something hap-
pening to excite him. With no one knowmg any French,
or having any particular heads on their shoulders. Oh if
among all his friends there was only one both practical and
with money and leisure to play Providence in the crises as
they come, and to tip the railway guards and hotel people
and generally pad and prepare the way for him on his
travels.’

Henley and Stevenson seem to have had an idea of
contributing to the National Review, a Conservative
periodical started in 1883 with Alfred Austin as its editor.
Here is Colvm at his most indignant and remonstrative :
‘ . . . And now look here ; I shall be really and seriously
hurt if you do anything to make Louis contribute to this
foolish Tory magazine, for which they have had to advertise,
like gabies as they are, and go beating the bush for “ latent
and undeveloped Conservative talent.” In the first place,
you are not pohticians at all, you or he : yon are Beacons-
fieldian by a literary whim, and have never thought about
politics at all ; he is the son of his father, and that ’s all.
The game is too serious a one, I mean the government of
men and orderings of societies, for this side or that to be
taken up in a freak, and if your politics, such as they are,
were anything but a freak, — ^well, I should think a good deal
less of you than I do.’

And again : —

‘ Mr. Cecil Raikes advertising for latent and undeveloped
Conservative talent, and fiidiing up you and Louis — I should
•like to see your faces when you found yourselves in the
basket of those solemn and timorous Hig^-Church gentle-

158 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

men ; and I dtiould like to see theirs still more. Raikes
and Louis, good Lord ! Lord Carnarvon and you, my golly 1
Why, the very sight of such Tones as you could make good
Radicals of them in two twos, and theirs of you ; and where
would the magazine be then ? No, the thing is a foUy, and
has been done in a peculiarly foolish way. — And that little
whipper-snapping all-round failure of an Alfred Austin is
the best kind of an editor they could get. — But enough ; I
don’t want you to be absurd, still less Louis. So drop it.
My dear old carping and rusty old fine-gentleman and Club-
Widg of a Newton, I don’t mmd ; he may join them, and
welcome, and has : but Louis and you, no never. — ^Muck ! —
Yours ever, S. C.’

Deacon Brodte was produced in London in July 1884, and
Colvin writes :

'Mv DEAR Hexley, — ^Thanks for your letter. I think
you are not at all right about the public and the Deacon.
I thought I felt their pulse too, and that by the play as a
whole they were disappomted, baffled, and thrown out, but
much impressed by particular scenes, and quite awake to
the power of particular passages both of acting and writing.
The caU was a mark of appreciation for these, and not of
approval of the thing as a whole. And in the main the
critics seem to me to have been both just and generous.
What one of them says is true, the Deacon is, as you have
written him, morally unintelligible, unconvincing, and non-
existent, neither can any amount of brilliant speeches or
effective acting make him otherwise. All of which you
knew quite well yourself two or three years ago. Another
time it will be all right, no doubt ; but don’t make the
nmtake of despising your critics.

' I saw Louis to my great delight for half an hour last
evening. Thought him quite as well as I expected, and 3ret
feail and fidghtening : and more loveable than ever. He
has broug^ht rain with him as we foretold, but I am in great*
hopes it won’t last. — Yours ever, S. C.’

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: I 159

This is Colvin’s next letter :

‘ My »DEAii Henley, — was sorry indeed to have your
news of Louis, and wish we had sent him off to the mountains
a month ago. Y ou must, and I know wiU, be on your guard
agamst letting him work too hard : I ’m afraid the brain
exertion isn’t good : and yet what is to be done ?

‘ £100 for three years of OUo don’t sound bad I think, and
I am very glad to hear there is so much to be had : it will
be something to push Longman’s with.^

‘ By to-night’s post I send you the Black Arrow : if
possible look at it yourself before taking it anywhere : I see
it is rather less good than I thought and I ’m afraid might
do him harm on the whole ; dever as it struck, but dullish
and put-up, and as unlike the reality of Treasure Island as
possible. I am no longer sure that I shall be able to get
away before Monday (instead of Saturday as I intended) —
but on or about that day I shall most likely turn up at
Bournemouth. Let me hear your plans, and if you have
any further news. — Yours ever, S. C.’

From Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell late in 1884 : ‘ If you
could come and stay with me a few days I cannot tell you
what a comfort it would be to me. Louis is iU again, not
this time with hemorrhages, but a cold, a present from his
mother, a parting gift, so to speak. . . .

‘ If you can’t come, or if it would inconvenience you,
espedahy on account of the weather, don’t think of it, but
please, my darhng friend, do what is best for you. It is
more for the comfort of your presence that I widi you than
anything else.’

From Mre. R. L. S. to Colvin : ‘ I am grieved that you
cannot come to us. Louis is ill again, with a dreadful cold
settled all over him, the very worst one he has ever had
with the exception of the one at Nice. I dare not dwell on
the subjait ; his mother gave it to him in spite of all my
-entreaties, and went off saying " now that Louis Ims entirely
1 In "the Empire

i6o THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

recovered his health, we shall expect him to spend his
Summers in Scotland with us.”

‘ I hear that Henley is not at all well. I write to say that
he might as well bring his influenza here, and join us, as he
can do no harm, and I long for some different ev^ts after
these three weeks of chilling seMdmess. If Louis dies of
this it will be murder. You see that I am not in a fit state
to wnte to any one.’

Colvin to Henley on November 30, 1884 : ‘ I have very
disqmeting accounts from Bournemouth. If ever I am
hang it will be for throttling Mrs. T. S., and I shall go s miling
and with a good conscience to the gallows. It appears that
after havmg crushed and exhausted him with three weeks
of their society (H. James was in high indignation after
having witnessed three days of it) ^e has left him the legacy
of an influenza cold, which has congested all his organs as in
the old Hy^es time. Fanny, on her account, is evidently
nearly off her head also. — I wish I could go down but
cannot at this moment.’

Mrs R. L. S. to Colvin. From the New London Hotel,
Exeter. [August or September 1885] : ‘ Loms has been
very ill indeed with a serious hemorrhage, the worst that
he has had e.xcept the one at Hy^res. As usual, it was very
sudden, and in the night, but the people of this house had a
doctor, ice, and all that was needed in ten minutes. . . . The
people of the house had had the same thing, a hemorrhage
I mean, befall a daughter, so they knew how to be of effi-
cient help. The next day Lady Shelley, who was at Torquay,
and Miss Taylor came and stayed till they were assured that
the worst was over.

‘ Lady Shelley has sent Louis all sorts of things for his
comfort, a bed rest and bed table upon which he b this
moment going to have his dinner. She also wanted to lend
me a nurse, but I refused. Dr. Scott wrote and offered to
come, " as a Mend,” he said in brackets, if it would be
any comfort to me. By that time Louis was better, so I .
declined with a heart filled with gratitude. Such an offer

MRS. R L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS. I i 6 t

as that gives me a feeling of sincerity that nothing else
could. ,

‘ We saw Hardy the novelist when we were there and
liked him exceedingly.

‘ I have been reading the beginning of Henry James’ new
novel. Most excellent, I think it, and altogether a new
departure, — not but that I have always hked his other work ;
but this is different, with the thrill of life, the beating of the
pulse that you miss in the others ' ^

Lady Shelley was the wife of Sir Percy Shelley, and Miss
Taylor the daughter of Sir Henry Taylor, all resident in
Bournemouth. Dr. Scott was one of the doctors to whom
Stevenson dedicated U ttderwoods. Henry James’s novel was
The Princess Casamassima.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From Bournemouth.
[' Skerryvore,’ 1885] : ‘ As to Louis, he is much better, though
still bad enough : he lias had the worst hemorrhage he
has ever had in England accompanied by congestion of the
brain. Henley must not come to him now with either work
or business unless he wishes to kill him.

' My back is broken altogether, but not with moving. I
had to lift Louis in and out of bed ten times in one
night. He was quite off his head and could not be contra-
dicted because he was bleeding at the lung^ at the same
time, and got into such furies when I wasn't quick enough.'

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. No date : ‘ Of course you are
more than welcome, you always are, as you know, and we
are most anxious to talk to you about ^ kinds of things,
besides. I am going to Bath for a day or two, but will be
back to see you. The “ family ” are at Bath, and it seems
the best place found as yet for the old gentleman, who is
much better and more like himself. I have not been very
wdl, though I have found the coca wine a blessing and a
boon. Lady Taylor feels so weU whEe taking it that she
is convinced that it must be a most dangerous remedy.

' Isn't that like Louis ? ’

^ In Empire Revim*

L

i 62 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. ‘ " Skerr^ore,” 1885 : To b^in,
Louis is the better for the moving, it having the same effect
as a change of climate. The name of Sea View still remains,
accordmg to the gallant captain’s taste, and Skerryvore is,
as yet, but whispered between only our Scots and their
relatives by marriage (that ’s me ; for if I am not Louis’
relative by marriage, then, pray, what am I ’).

‘ H. J. [Henry James] did find us, Louis was well enough
to see him, we are devoted to him, and he comes to us every
evening after dinner. I think there is no question but that
he likes Louis ; naturally, I have hardly been allowed to
speak to him, though I fain would. He seems very gentle
and comfortable, and I worship in silence, — enforced silence,
— enforced by the elegant, though brutal Mr. Stevenson.

‘ The front door, by my exertions, and a charwoman’s, is
much improved, and more drawn into harmony with its
surroundings.

‘ Louis did receive the stamped request, and did something
vague Pray remember me with many kind messages to
the providential Hammond. I think you mean he is full
of writing to Louis and not me ; as I said to Sargent, “lam
but a cipher under the shadow,’’ to which he too eagerly
assented. It is only kind custodians who write to me :
and now and then a lonely Symonds, or a savage Henley
who attacks me.

' I am much taken up with the thought of the Spanish
Treasure Island. Louis means to write to Mr. Hammond
and find out how to get it. Having got it, he hopes to learn
Spanidi by its means. I am glad indeed that you like OUo.
I have be^ed to have a few things marked out, not mudi.
My hand has been laid upon him in no spirit but that of
kindness, — ^upon Otto I mean, not Louis, to whom I am
often unkind, though always, I hope unintentionally.’ ^

Mr. Hammond was Basil Hammond, a fellow of Trinily
and iaturer on history.

Colvin writes to Henley about this time : ' Have you read ’

* In the Empire Eevtem.

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : I X63

Otto ? — and do you agree with me as to its excellence —
especially the begiiming and end ? ’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From Bournemouth.
[Spring, 1885] :

‘ My DEAREST Friend, — Many thanks for your kind and
pleasant letter. It is very comfortable to know that we
have a home really and truly, and will no more be hke
Noah’s dove, flying about with an olive branch, and trying
to pretend that we have found a bit of dry ground to perch
upon. I do hope that you will be able to come and visit
us in it, and dear Sooka too I never saw a place that
seemed arranged so e.xactly to suit our requirements as this
place, which is to be called “ Skerry Vore.” There is even
a httle studio for me to dabble pamts in, and the garden is
delicious. WTien we are rich enough (if I am not too fat
by that time) there is a stable all ready for my horse. A
fine dog house also awaits my Bogue.

‘ We have just had a visit from Beerbohm Tree, whose
name, I am sorry to say, is treated with shocking levity
by Louis. He seems a very nice, modest, pleasant fellow,
and we were much pleased with him. I see that the great
Oscar is coming here in a fortnight. I rather wish he would
come to see us ; I feel shghtly curious to look upon the
disciple of the aesthetic. A French paper that Louis got
this morning describes his personal appearance as being like
a “ white malady.” It sounds very dreadful indeed, and I
hope is not absolutely corr«:t. I read Otto to Mrs. Steven-
son, and do you know she objected and applauded precisely
when you did. I shall have to go to Hydres soon, now, to
settle our affairs, but how to leave Louis, for I ^aH have to
take Valentine with me, I do not know.

‘ What a dreadful thing these explosions have been. Our
Arabian tales have been a good deal knocked over by them,
but Louis is remodelling where it is necessary as hard as he
can. It is a great advertisement if one may be allowed to
say so. I cannot tell you how I ad m ire the Englidi police-

i64 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

man. I want Louis to write an article about them. It is
lucky I am not a housemaid or a cook. At the first sight
of a pohceman I should be a lost woman. They are expected
to be braver than generals, and wiser than Mr. Gladstone ;
and the expectation is verified. I wonder if the d3mamiters
will come blowing up Louis and me, and our Valentine and
our Bogue. It wouldn’t be so very surprising I feel no
vocation towards being made a martyr, but I do not believe
an5dhing could happen more to the point than for them to
blow up a young French girl, an American woman, and a
romantic young author.

‘ Couldn’t you just come down to me for a few days ?
It would be such a delight and joy. In this request Louis
joins with all his heart.' ^

Skerryvore was the name of one of the lighthouses built
by Stevenson’s family of engineers. Bogue was the name
by which Wattie was now called. In the interim it had
been Woggie, and Woggs.

Beerbohm Tree was at Bournemouth to talk about the
plays that Stevenson had been writing with Henley. The
Arabian Tales were the new series of Nm Arabian Nights
which Stevenson was plannmg with his wife, resulting in
The Dynamiter. The explosions were those of the Fenian
outrages of that year. Valentine was Mrs. Stevenson’s
French maid.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerryvore.’ [1885] :

' Mr. Sargent came last night to do the portrait. It begins
well, and one hand that is finMied expresses about all of
Louis. God grant the head may follow suit.

* I have another pk.y in my mind which I told to Archer,
who thinks it more to the point than an5dhing else, and begs
to have it written. He is a very nice fdlow, indeed, and
I should write to him at this moment, only I have broken
my gksses and dare only to write to an indulgent Custodian.’

John Sar^t painted Stevenson twice.

A letter from Colvin to Henley thus refers to the portrait : ‘

^ In the Empire Revuw,

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS’ I 165

‘ I was sorry not to be able to see anything of Fanny when
she came — but she should have given a word of warning. I
hope the cat will eat Woggs, and I hope Woggs will eat the
cat. — ^These animals are always demons. — I have an idea
of going down there for a few days the week after next. It
is a great thing to be able to have some hopefulness about
him again. Have you seen Sargent’s picture ? It 's him
to the life in gesture and expression — living life, with a
touch of charge ^ ; but somehow small and perky and peaky
a little too : as clever as possible, but not satisf3dng.’ A
criticism which recalls Sargent’s own remark, that a portrait
is ‘ a picture of a man or woman, with something wrong
with the mouth.’

The play was, I think. The Hmiging Judge, which Mrs.
Stevenson and her husband wrote later. Archer w’as the
late William Archer.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skenyvore.’ [1885] :
‘ I am sure the money you sent was but a small item in
the expense we brought upon the moment. I know your
expenses. There are other things we owe, such as gratitude
and the like, but we are proud of the debt, and it can hardly
be spoken of.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skenyvore.’ [1885] :

‘ Please don’t be so stem with me. You don’t know how
frightening the thought of your displeasure is. I hardly dare
raise my eyes to the photograph that guards our slumbers.
Long ago you said you would lend Mr. Smith's. I have
steadily begged for a sight of it, but I suppose you don’t
know that. Most humbly contrite for no fault of my own.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ' Skenyvore.’ [1885] :

‘ I am very fond of the father, but not so fond of him, after
all, as X am of Louis, and the spirit of self-sacrifice is not
strong in me. Except for this touch of hemorrhage, which
began yesterday morning, and is now no better, no worse,
Louis is remarkably well.

' I send with this a note to Mrs Jenkin, which I beg you

^ A word signifying ♦ reprt^entntian exag^Sr^e d*une personne/

i66 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

to post for me, as I have entirely lost her address, and don’t
know what else to do. Her son, Frewin, took some fihoto-
graphs of Louis, one of which is rather like, but over-
beautiful, Christ walking on the waters, as Lady Shelley
said. Dear old Sir Percy took a number, one or two of
which I think really very good. As soon as I can get some
I will send you the best of each It is very odd that while
one represents an angel, the devil must have posed for
another, so ghastly, impishly wicked, and malignant is
it. Plainly Jekyll and Hyde.

‘ Do you ever see our dear Mend, Henry James ? He
was in this country when I last heard from him. We think
most highly of the new novel as it goes on.’ ^

Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin is referred to. The James novel
is still The Princess Casamassinta.

Mrs R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skenyvore ’ [1885] :
‘ Smeuroch, Mr. Stevenson’s dog, now lives with us. She
is a cat killer ; imagine how I enjoy her society with my
poor Ginger (who, by the way, is a dog killer), walking stiff
legged and big tailed about the house ! ’ ^

Mr. Stevenson, who owned the dog, was R. L. S.’s father.
Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skenyvore.’ [1885] :

‘ Best of Custodians, — Our conduct, as usual, has been
horrid : but you, as usual, I trust, will prove forgiving. I
begin to believe that Louis and I are both suffermg, not
from softening of the brain, but ossification of the intdlect.
We are able to eat and sleep and behave rudely, that is all.
I am glad you are having such a complete change, though
it does seem to remove all diance of a visit here, which we
would love. However, I suppose we, or one of us, will go
to the " mommy ” as you say we may. We have had a
good deal of wearing company for some time : our own
house was full, and we had also a couple of dependend^
in the neighbourhood. Louis’ mother and father were
here. Aimt Alan, and Miss Ferrier and Henley, we have
also had Teddy Henley for a couple of nights. Bob and
* la the Empire Semew. * In the Empire Mevme.

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : I 167

his family, and Katherine and hers are also in the neigh-
bourhQod, — and Sam ’s here. It has been such a difficult
party that I quite broke dovm under the strain.

‘ Through it aH the dear Henry James remained faithful,
though he suffered bitterly and openly. He is gone now,
and there is none to take liis place. After ten weeks of
Henry James the evenings seem very empty, though the
room is always full of people. As the time passed we came
to have a re^ affection for him, and parted from him with
sincere regret.

' We have started more or less of an intimacy with the
Taylors : — that is, the daughters. Sir Henry himself being
almost too beautiful and refined and angelic for ordinary
people like us. Also we are rather intimate with the
SheUeys. Lady Shelley is delicious, — naturally no longer
young, suffering from the effects of a terrible accident that
has left her a hopeless invalid ; but with aU the fire of
youth, and as mad as some other people you know, and
ready to plunge into any wild extravagance at a moment’s
notice.

‘ Sir Percy is an odd creature : Do you know him ? He
is the poet’s son only in being so exceedingly curious. I
think we will come to be very fond of him. They have a
lovely little theatre at their place here, and give very
delightful entertainments, which will be pleasant for us.
They have a bust of Mary Wollstonecraft done from a death
mask, over which Louis raves : and justly, for it is the
most interesting thing ever seen. I think we are very
lucky to find two such pleasant families in Bournemouth.
Other people pour in upon us in droves, but they are all
alike, and I find none to interest or amuse. After speaking
of the weather and kindred topics, they generally observe.
" your husband is quite literary, I imderstand.” Now
what should one say ? I murmur vagudy, “ I dunno,
m’sure,” at which they show faint surprise, and slightly
bridle. But I can thi n k of no other formula.’ ^

^ In Empire Eevtew,

i68 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Colvin was, of course, the Custodian — a reference to his
position at the Bntish Museum. Being in residence ie was
not only Keeper of the Prints, but on certain nights con-
fined to the precincts, responsible for the whole place. Bob
was R. A. M. Stevenson. Katherine was Katherine de
Mattos, Stevenson’s cousin. Sam was Mrs. R L. Steven-
son’s son, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, soon to be promoted to
the name of Lloyd. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson,
Colvin tells us, never quite seemed to realize how necessary
it was for their dehcate son to have qmet when he was
suffering from one of his attacks of hemorrhage.

The first letter from Henry James that Colvin preserved
has reference to this visit.

He writes : ‘ I have just (an hour ago) come back from
three days at Bournemouth, whither I went to see Steven-
son, about whom I should like to talk to you (they appear
to be more or less expecting you). My visit had the gilt
taken off by the somewhat ponderous presence of the
parents — who sit on him much too long at once. (They
are to remain apparently another week, and I cannot see
why don’t see how they take it out of him.) He was
bright and charming, but struck me as of a smaller vitality
than when I saw him last, — a very frail and delicate thread
of strength. If he could be quite alone on alternate or
occasional weeks, it would be a blessing.’ ^

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerr3rvore.’ [1885-86] :

‘ Louis is most anxious to make a change, and the Highlands
are suggested, but we are cut off from that refuge, as Louis’
father would instantly join us, whidi would kill Louis.
Indeed we can think of no place where he k not likely to
be with us except the continent, and I recoil from the hot
dreadful journey. Louis is thinking a little of going by
sea to Bordeaux, thence to the Pyrene®. We had spoken
eagerly of going North, to Norway, or somewhere, but then
there is the voyage, and the uncertainty whether it could
suit. Can you suggest any place ? Louis says it must be
^ In ilte Fit^swilliazn Museum.

MRS. R, L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS; I 169

where he will be amused, and as he can find no amusement
in England, I don’t know what to do. France is so hot
and unhealthy in the Summer, but I rather think he has
got his heart set upon it. From Bordeaux he would go to
Paris, and then the mountains. He thinks it would be
cheap, but I fear he is wrong, and I fancy, too, there would
be diligences which he can’t stand. I wish somebody
could advise me.

‘ I almost incline to think the Monument as good a
change as anything else. It cures seaside liver, and amuses,
and is safe and not far. Please give me some really monu-
mental advice.’

R. L. S. and his wife to Mrs. Sitwell. From ‘ Skenyvore.'
[May 1886] :

‘ My dear Friend, — I know I should have written, but
I haven’t been able to ; all day I read to Sam. Louis is
much too tired through having hke an idiot obeyed the
doctor’s orders to take exercise, and Sam takes one cold
after another ; and odd times I fill up by coughing myself.

Wliat do you hear of C. S. ? D shame she broke down,

which is probably a good job for all concerned except me.

I am not so bad as all that ; only idiotified and rheumatic
and the like : but Sam’s new cold is truly vexmg. We
hope for the best : no letters can flow from this place, till
some one of us shakes off the cloud of impotent gloom which
hangs (I speak for myself at least) like a dream mountain
on my shoulders. — ^Ever your friend,

‘R. L. S.’

I cannot identify C. S.

Mk. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerryvore.’ [Sep-
tember or October 1886] : ‘ We arrived very comfortably
indeed, and the journey seemed to do Louis good, but I am
afraid the piano is mt good for him. In the morning he
gets up fedBng very well indeed, and at about ten ^ts to
’the piano where he stays till three or after, drinking his
coffee, even, at the instrument. At three or thereabouts

170 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

he Isreaks down altogether, gets very white and is extremely
wretched with exhaustion until the next morning again.
I do not know what to do about it. He always sa5re that
the first thing is to cut off his pleasures, which is pretty
true : and I haven’t the heart to try and stop the piano.
It was that he wanted to come home for, and it is now
wearing him out entirely.’ ^

The Stevensons, says Colvin, ‘ had just gone to Bourne-
mouth after a visit to me at the official house I inhabited
at the British Museum. Stevenson was an eager lover of
music and keenly interested in musical theory ; at various
times of his life he tried to learn the practice of this or that
instrument, but the frailty of his health prevented the
attempt ever being carried far.’

Mrs. R. L. S, to Colvin. From ‘ Skenyvore.’ [1886] :

‘ Faithless, but still dear Custodian, — Restore that
painting! Instantly restore that picture so basely pur-
loined from the innocent and youthful Sargent 1 To-morrow,
to-day, restore it. The parents are here and demand a
sight of it. This is only a note to say that I feel almost
positive that they will be gone before you come. If they
are still here, then I fear I can’t offer a bed, but I feel posi-
tive they will be gone. I simply cannot write you, having
no news. This is just to assure you of the warmest welcome
when you do come, and to demand the picture. I will soon
really write. In the meantime, with much love from
Louis, who is better, am affectionately yours, F.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From ‘ Skenyvore.’
[Early Spring, 1886] : ‘ I do hope there are some good
accounts of our dear S. C. : we are most anxious about him
until we hear that he is really better. Sam sends his love,
as do I. I have written to Mr. James, but cannot write
to any one else on account of every moment being devoted
to Sam. You, my poor dear, know as no one else can,
about that.'

^ la the Empire Remm ^

MRS. R, L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS; I 171

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Sken^vore.’ [1886] :
‘ Louis Jancies that he feels some stirring of the intellect.
I hope he doeSj for it was growing alarming. I began to
fear he would never work again. Do please send the photo-
graph. It was not kmd of the magician to give you one,
and not me. I will take the greatest care of it, and return
it at once. We have had such a kind letter from the dear
Henry James, whose new novel seems most excellent m
all ways.’

Henry James’s new novel was probably The Bostontans.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerryvore.’ [1886] :
‘ Speaking of demons, this morning Valentine [the French
maid] brought in a sheet of white paper with, apparently,
several bits of broken twig on it. She said, “ Please don’t
touch the paper, but look closely and see if you can see
an3rihing curious about any of these bits of stem I have
been breaking off the ivy.” ” I can see nothing in any of
them different from other ivy twigs,” said I. “ Look
again,” she persisted, and as she spoke touched one of them
with a leaf : imagme my horror when I saw the thing was
alive, and could hump up its back. Unless it is moving it
is absolutely impossible to tell it from the other twigs. I
was afraid after seemg it to strike a match lest it should
turn and upbraid me. Are these things common in
England ? If it isn’t usual to meet them, I still posess the
beast, and could send it to any one who pines for society
of that description, we don’t.

‘ P.S . — Lady Shelley tells me she has met you and foimd
you delightful.’

R. L. S. and his wife to Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell :

‘ Skerryvore, Boumemonih, May 25, *86.

‘ My dear People, — ^I almost never get a moment to
write, Sam not yet being able to go out to speak of, and
keeping me busy all the time. Louis cannot work, but I
am not distressed about that, as he is really wonderfully
well. I do not think his lungs Inve been in so good a

172 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

state for a long time. He is enjo37ing the piano immensely,
and IS learning to play in a way. I should like so much to
hear you play your “ piece.” The Skerryvore lantern is
being put up, and when next you come you shall [Here
Stevenson begms to write ] In Bright’s to-day, the man
told me Jekyll had been preached about in St. Peter’s, and
next day a lady came into the shop and asked for “ That
book about a medical man who lives here in Bournemouth,
who took something, and came to a bad end.” He gave
it up, — as he said, “ having heard of no physician who had
poisoned himself m Bournemouth.” And by subsequent
visitors found out at last what it was. The preacher must
of course have said that the author lived in Bournemouth.
I took up this sheet, while F. was in the middle of a sentence.
The boy is coughing again ; I fear he shd not have been
out. I went and saw Lady Taylor to-day ; she looks rather
ill, I was sorry to see her. Sam and I are learning the
piano at no end of a rate ; we now play the rottenest duet
extant, but we shall do better next time for we come round
[sjc]. — Yours ever affectionately, R. L. S.’

‘ I know nothing of Miss O’l’lTiatshemame but have seen
her books well reviewed ; kiss her for her mother. I know
nothing of the crow [?] excepting this, that I defy it. I
am told it will defy me. We have a hedgehog : that is all
right ; but we sh^ soon have no pigeons ; except vicari-
ously in the form of a certain fluffy cat, who eats and
indigests upon 'em daily. We play on him with a hose,
and we have morbid recourse to mechanical arts so as
to bar his passage : but it will not do ; pigeons and
a cat are, I fear, incompatible : what would Captain
Best say ? R. L. S.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin, From ‘ Skerryvore.’ [1886] :

‘ If you prefer waiting to see Louis alone, Sunday week may
not be the best time. It is needless to say that whenever
you do come you will be received with joy and thanks-'
giving. Louis has a cold whidi has not affected him, at

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: I 173

least as yet, as senousiy as colds used to do. The tale he
has sent Longman I think a very good weird thing.

‘ The yellow cat Ginger is a great comfort to all but the
Bogue [the dog], whose heart is torn with jealousy.

‘ I am most anxious to have Henley down here for a
while, but I suppose it would be of no use while the
parents are here They are coming for a change for the
old gentleman, who is in an h3^ochondriacal state.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerryvore.’ [1886-87] :
' Louis had a bad night, through Charley Robertson's send-
ing him the letter of some idiot who said “ Mr. Stevenson
is neither a gentleman nor respectfuU.” I was angry with
all of them for this general impertinence, and after removung
Louis’ answer, sent one of my own, less stilted in style,
but hkely to make people more uncomfortable.

‘ I hope you wih soon see that old young lady — or young
old lady, which is it ? — Mrs. Procter, and explain why I
did not go to see her as I promised. Please give my love
to all monumental people, and all they love.’

Mrs. Procter — widow of ' Barry Cornwall,’ bom in 1799.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From 'Skerryvore.’
[1886-87] : ‘ The Jenkin book moves on apace, and I
think is good, very good.’

Stevenson’s memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, who had died
in 1885.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From Edinburgh. [May
1887] : ‘ We have arrived to find our dear old man passing
away painlessly.

' Would you believe it that the old man is up and dressed
every day ? Until yesterday he went down stairs for the
day. He has always sard that no man who respected
himself should die in a bed, and unless he passes off in
the ni^t he will die “ as a gentleman drould ” according
to his own creed. Louis is taking it very well ; at least
just now. But really the bitterness of death was past
'long ago.’ *

^ III the Empim

174 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

To Colvin after Mr. Stevenson’s death. From 17 Heriot
Row, Edinburgh. [Spring, 1887] :

' Dear Friend, — Louis has a bad cold, the usual thing.
Not quite such a double-barrelled one as the museum one,
but bad enough, and increasing in the usual way. It is
depressing. A poisonous sun is shining ; I beheve they
caU it fair weather. ... I wish you had been here this
week, you might have saved Louis this. When he says
that going out in the rain at night is good for him, instead
of harmful, strangers believe him, and I am crowded back
as a " meddlesome female,” as I suppose I really do seem to
be. I must say that Dr. Balfour has acted most kindly to
Louis. He kept him out of Heriot Row even the night his
father died, which is more than I could have done myself.
He did all he could to keep Louis in check, and is watching
him most carefully now. All this old pretending that
Louis was only nerves and not ill is at an end. He, the
doctor, is continually warning me to take care of Louis,
as he IS seriously iH. Much love to you all, dear friends,

‘ Fanny ’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvm. A few days later, from 17
Heriot Row, Edinburgh. [Spring, 1887] .

'Best Friend, — You have heard that Louis’s cold is
better, but I thought I should tdl you more about it. Dr.
Balfour, to our surprise, has become, apparently, a sort of
second rate guardian angel, hovering over us with pro-
tecting wings until we are dying with bewilderment. He
went so far as to keep Louis out of the house the night of
his father’s death, leaving Mrs. Stevenson alone with ser-
vants. He would have kept him away altogether if he
could. When this cold came on, he (the doctor) said it
must be stopped and he would stop it, it was going on just
as at the Monument, but after three days inhaling through
a machine like a table cruet, the symptoms b^an to change*
for the better, and I believe it has been kept off the lung

MRS. R L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS- I 175

altogether. Twice a day does the kindly physician call to
see us and no care and pains are spared. In one way it is
depressing, as he says frankly that though Louis may have
ups and downs he can never really be better, and will
always have hemorrhages more or less bad according to the
care he takes of himself. He says just what Ruedi always
said, that it is fibroidal disease of the lungs, for which there
is no cure, only palliation.

‘ Yesterday he took me in hand. Of me, he said that I
had had wrong treatment from all the doctors but Dr.
Goring ; that if I had held to Gonng’s treatment steadily I
should now be much better. As it is, he says the thing has
not progressed so far but that I may be quite cured in time,
though it may be several years. He doesn’t think Aix very
important for me, though it might do some good. At the
same time it might do harm unless the doctor there under-
stood the case thoroughly. It is very strange, is it not ? I
mean, this change of face. Mrs. Stevenson seems very weD,
and is looking much better again. It is a dreadful day, and
Louis is staying in bed, though otherwise he would be
getting up. I don’t know when ive shall get away. Louis
has to see to all the business and setthng up of tMngs, and
that takes time and waiting, and much worry. There were
a lot of trustees appointed, but Mrs. S. and Louis have diaken
themselves loose and are attending to affairs themselves. I
have no time to write more. Please give thanks for letters,
and much love to that dear lady, and to yourself, from us
both. — ^Ever yours affectly.,

‘ F. V. 0E G. Stevenson '

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. ‘ Skenyvore.’ [Spring, 1887] :

' As to our going away : Mrs. Stevenson will this year get
some money from the business, so she proposes to stand all
the expense she can of a winter in Colorado : she, Louis,
Lloyd, and me, accompanied by Valentine and John. We
Should go in August. Do you know a couple of elderly
quiet people who would like to take our house at a high

176 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

price while we are gone ? This couple must love cats
tenderly, and take Ginger to their bosoms. Also Agnes as
housemaid and attendant upon the cat. Does such a couple
as this exist ? If not, please have them prepared for us at
once, or no more call yourself guardian angel.

‘ I should be more glad than words can express if you
could see us for a day or two. If Louis is well enough we
want to come to you ; but the weather must be good in
London, and the man must be reasonably good in health,
the man and poet, I mean ; for no such shabby trick is to
[be] played upon you again as was done last year. Let us
know how the weather goes, and whether you want us when
we can come. Our dear love to aU and every one.

‘ We are just dying for the Keats, especially Lloyd, who
has heard so much of it, and yet knows so little.’ ^

Colvin’s book on Keats in the ‘ Enghsh Men of Letters
Series ’ was about to be published.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From ‘ Skerryvore.' [1887] :
‘ Could a guardian angel give me some information in return
for the many uninteresting facts I have laid at his feet ? I
wish to see the Honolulu Queen or the Princess, preferably
the latter. Now how shall I direct a note to either or both
of them ? The princess is an mtimate friend of BeUe’s, and
has been told by Belle that I will go to see her. But Belle
has no idea of the dignity that doth hedge a queen, in
England, at least. The princess is also called Mrs. Dominis,
thou^ I don’t know how to pronounce the name. Belle
gives a very amusing account of how ^e and the king
designed all the fine clothes the queen is to wear at the
jubilee, while she, poor soul, stood by weeping bitterly at
the idea of having to wear them, declaring that nothing
would induce her to go to any jubflee.

‘ You, who associate with duch^ses and such like aris-
tooacy, might also tell me how I should address the dusky
PriJKess. I suppcse she knows no more than I do, but
that is no consolation to me. Please bring your birthday

* In tiie Empire Remew,

ROBERl LOL.IS STE\E^’^0^ l\ IHl MID i IGH I hi N hi \ EM IE>

FKOM THL DRAWING Bi T BLAKE %\IRGMAN BA^LD ON THt OKIGIN^L CHAKt.O\L DRAWING B\
MRn OSHOl RNE, afterwards MRS R* I '■I t \ t VsON

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: I‘ 177

here. The babe has arrived, but has been so dosely
clasped* to Louis’ bosom that I have not yet had more than,
a sight of its outer garments ; which are very becoming and
well chosen.’

‘ The babe ’ was Colvin’s monograph on Keats, which
I imagine had been specially bound.

Writing of Stevenson in Memories ani Notes, Colvin says,
of the family’s departure from England in August 1887 :

‘ My next vision of him is the last, and shows him as he
stood with his family lookmg down upon me over the rail
of the outward-botmd steamship Ludgate Hill while I
waved a parting hand to him from a boat in the Thames
by Tilbury Dock. From our first meetmg in Suffolk until his
return with his wife from California in 1880 had been one
spell of seven years. From that return until his fre^
departure in 1887 had been another. Now followed the
winter spent at Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Motmtains.’

A few days later came a letter from Mrs. Stevenson,
written on the steamer :

'SS •' Ludgate mil,”

' Sep. 4<A [1887].

'Dear Monument, — ^And that reminds me that I am
sure you have not registered as Montment, and that I shall
have to pay simdry extra sixpences for the address to which
I shall send a telegram the moment we arrive in New York.
My next telegram after that I shall send to Monumevi on
the chances. So far, with one exception, our journey has
been a most prosperous one. Louis has gained strength
every day to such a degree that we have really made up
our mmds to a life on the ocean wave. Unless something
unforeseen happens to prevent we shall dash across the
continent, take ship on the Pacific side, and head for Japan.
Before I go any farther, I had better hark back, and tell
you at once what the untoward event has been, lest you
think it worse than it is, or concerning Louis ; he, I know,
'being your first thought. Mrs. Stevenson has turned out
a regular sea bird ! We call her Mother Carey’s chicken,
M

178 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

the stormy petrel, and etc. We have had to watch her
lest she should be washed overboard, or should 4ake it
into her head to mount the rigging ; — ^but we never thought
of the dangers of a hammock. This morning one was
swung for her! Instantly any number of other giddy
young things piled into it, she leaping on at the last ; the
rope broke, and down came the whole of them, all upon
her, except Lloyd, who managed to get a shake that sent
him pale and dizzy. She got some jar to her spine, and
has been lymg where she fell, some [few] hours ago. She
seems quite cheerful, and says the pain is less, but we
cannot yet teU whether it is serious or only a passing thing.
If I send my letter off with no further reference to the
accident, you may be assured that it is because things are
aH right.

‘ The passage has been a very rough one ; equal, they
say, to a January one, but nothing seems to have harmed
Louis. We have been in gales and squalls and have had
continual high seas. Also, the Ludgate Hill is a roller.
To-day is one of our best da37s, and yet I wnte with difficulty.
Of course we shall be very late in getting in. I hope you
will not be alarmed at not hearing when you had a right to
expect a telegram. I suppose there was never a worse
^p than this ; and yet we have enjoyed every mmute on
board her, except when we (Valentme, Lloyd and I) were
seasick. Rows of horses look through the wmdows and
watch us [illegible] ! each port-hole frames a stallion’s head !
We have cows, and there are thirty monkeys and a baboon
on the lower deck. Our stallions are worth twenty thousand
pounds, and pay first-dass passage. One horse-owner
physics his sick mare from his [iQegible] bed through the
port-hole. When it rolls heavily, the horses, who have
their sea legs now, run forward, and then back, making a
curious rhythmical trampling. There never was so strange
a diip. AE these extending erections on deck remain.
Not a single passenger knew about the horses, nor under- ■
stood that this was any diSerent from an ordinary passenger

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS • I 179

ship; not even the ship's doctor, nor many of lie
[sailors]#

‘Mackenzie the champion chess player is aboard. He
objects to nothing in particular but the humiliation of
being seen to land from a vessel like this. The second day
out one of the stewards jumped overboard. It is believed
that he was a gentleman gone a little mad. Except for
him, there was but one other man who could be fairly called
a gentleman aboard (barring our own party), and he is
French, and only 19. AH this is not complaints, only
description, as both Louis and I can get on very well with
any sort of people, and have been much amused by these.
It was well that we had Mr. [illegible] 's champagne, as
what we took ourselves would not have been enough for
our necessities. — On board ship champagne is a necessity.

‘ Louis has just come to say that his mother seems much
better, and has been able to move to a more comfortable
place, so I trust it is not so bad. It is so very difficult to
write in a ship that rolls so heavily, and as I know there will
be a great scurry at the end, I shall beg you to pass the
news (good news, I call it) on to our dear Henry James. I
may not be able to make out another letter, and I should
wi^ him to know as soon as possible all there is to teU, and
our dear love. I widi I didn’t hate your photograph.
Valentine is sitting beside Mrs. Stevenson reading aloud
Daisy Miller. Louis says it is very furmy to hear it read
in Valentine’s accent. I have knitted one sock since we
left, but as it seems to be nowhere like Lloyd’s leg and foot
I have misgivings as to whether he may not be deformed.
Our kmdest regards to your brother, and again our love to
you. — ^Ever affectionately.

' F. V. DE G. Stevensok '

CHAPTER XIII

THE PRINT ROOM AND THE FIRST BOOK ON KEATS

1884-1887

In 1884 Colvin had been appointed to the post of Keeper of
the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British
Museum, and this he held until his retirement, under the
age regulation, in 1912. He continued to hold the Slade
professorship imtil 1885, but had of course to give up the
FitzwiUiam. I take from The Times the following summary
of his work as Keeper : ‘ Colvin's studies and experience
at Cambndge proved of great value to his work as Keeper
of the National Collection of Pnnts and Drawings. He
reorganized the arrangement on more modem lines, under-
took a critical revision of the drawings, and had the majority
of them remounted on a system which has since been
imitated in all the leading collections on the Continent.
His relations with collectors and influential persons, whom
he advised and gmded in their studies, and his all-round
knov^ledge of history, literature, and scholarship were in-
valuable to the Museum. During his Keepership there were
acquired by purdiase the Malcolm collection of drawings
and pnnts, the Reeve collection of drawings and etchings
of the Norwich School, the finest collection existing of draw-
ings by Lucas van Leyden, a remarkable series of drawings
by Tintoretto, a fine collection of Japanese woodcuts and
drawings, and many other accessions, generally chosen with
fine taste and juc^pnent and bought for the most part at
prices which were very low compared with those which have
prevailed since 1910. The most notable gifts and bequests
to his Department were the Mitchell German woodcuts, the

ISO

THE PRINT ROOM

i8i

Cheylesmore mezzotints, and the Salting engravings and
drawings. An important branch of his work was the arrange-
ment of exhibitions, admirably chosen and catalogued, in
the gallery of the department. The Guides to these exhibi-
tions were excellent ; the Rembrandt catalogue especially
is a document of great importance for the study of the
master’s work, which had never before been placed in
chronological order. Towards the end of his Museum career
he took a great interest in Japanese art, just before the
great rise in prices which would have made it impossible
for the Museum to compete with collectors of Japanese
drawings and woodcuts.’

Mr. Laurence Binyon, who was one of Colvin’s assistants
in the Print Room for many years and is now Deputy
Keeper in charge of the sub-department of Oriental Prints
and Drawings, kindly sends me some notes on Colvin as
Keeper : ‘ During his twenty-eight years’ term of office he
made the department much more important than it had
been before. A fine scholar, with keen literary enthusiasms,
and a social acquaintance both wide and distingui^ed, he
brought a new atmosphere into the Print Room. He had
had predecessors who knew their special subject extremely
well and were regularly consulted by collectors for authori-
tative opinions : but I fancy that (with certain exceptions)
they were apt to confine themselves to acquiring a first-
hand acquaintance with engravings and drawings, especially
the former. However this may be, it is certain that Colvin
greatly raised the standard of scholarship expected in the
staff. He brought to his special work all the interests of
a wide culture; and the Department, which had been
obscurely lodged in makeshift fashion, first in one and then
in another comer of the Museum, was, some y^rs after he
took it over, adequately installed on the two floors which it
occupied till his retirement, when it was transferred to its
present quartern in the new building,

■ ‘ At Cambridge Colvin had lectured on various phases of
art, on Greek sculpture, and on European painting of all

i 82 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

periods. As Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, he was
well acquainted with all the schools of painting, bu^was not
a specialist. His knowledge of prints was equally wide, and
he was very thorough in all his studies. He was not, I
think , a bom connoisseur, his judgment was not instinctive
enough for that. It was with his mind rather than through
his senses that he trained his faculties. But when he
applied himself to a subject, the patience and detailed
accuracy he brought to bear were astonishing. Also he had
the gift of lucid and concise exposition. The Guides he
wrote to the exhibitions he arranged were models of their
kind. Not till the Print Room was at last allotted a Gallery
of its own, could any adequate exhibitions be held ; but the
series which Colvin organized in it rightly attracted much
attention. One of these especially is of some historic
importance. That is the exhibition of Rembrandt etchings
and drawings ; for this was the first attempt to arrange the
complete etched work of the master in chronological order.
On this exhibition is based the arrangement in Mr Hind’s
Catalogue of the Etchings, now the standard work in the
subject.

‘ Another memorable exhibition was that of the Malcolm
drawings. The acquisition of the Malcolm collection for the
Museum was, I suppose, the most notable achievement of
Colvin's Keepership. It was indeed a magnificent addition
to the treasures of the Department, and it was due to his
personal enterprise and exertions that the Government was
persuaded to give a special grant and thus secure the collec-
tion for the nation. When it is remembered that no one
had been able to persuade the Government of the day to
buy Sir Thomas Lawrence’s collection — ^the most splendid
coUection of Old Master drawings ever made — for a sum
much bdow its value, Colvin’s achievement will be more
fully appreciated. Other splendid collections, such as the
Mitchell coUection of German engravings and the Cheylesr
more coUection of mezzotints (to name but these), came to
the Department by gift or bequest durmg Colvin’s time :

THE PRINT ROOM 183

and he never spared efforts to persuade possible givers to
enrich 4he nation in this way, often with success.

‘ Brought up under the influence of Ruskin, and sharing
the tastes of his own generation, Colvin had a special fond-
ness for the Italian Quattrocento, in which Burton made the
National Gallery so rich. The Print Room has one of the
finest collections of early Italian engravings in the world ;
and Colvin made it his business to study these, not merely
in relation to other engravmgs but to the whole of early
Italian art. The work on which as a student and historian
of art he pnded himself most was the big folio volume in
which he had reproduced, complete in facsimile, the Floren-
tine Picture-Chronicle once bdonging to Ruskin and pur-
chased from him by Colvin for the Museum. In this work
Colvin set out to prove that the Chronicle drawings were
by Maso Finiguerra, once reputed the inventor of engravmg,
and certainly an engraver, though as to what works should be
attributed to him authorities were in debate. In its close tex-
ture, its reasoned exposition, its lucid marshalling of facts,
its wealth of illustrative material, drawn from literary docu-
ments as well as from architecture, painting and sculpture,
this study is a typical example of Colvin’s method. He
examines with great minuteness and patience the drawings
and the engravmgs in question ; and though in some quar-
ters his theory was combated, it is, I believe, accepted by
the most competent authorities on Florentine art. A simi-
lar large folio was devoted to the Early English Engravers ;
here the collection of the matenal was made by Mr. Arthur
Hind, while Colvm arranged it and summarized the subject
in an essay, written, like all his work in this kind, with
admirable exactness and breadth. His collaborator remem-
bers with gratitude the aid of his skilled and shapmg hand.
He liked to be workmanlike in his writing, and liked the
same quality to be shown in any writing done under his
direction. He had a care for good English, and set an
example in his own terse and dear style.

‘ Like all of us, Colvin had his " imperfect sympathies ” as

i 84 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

well as downright dislikes. For French art, especially of
the modem period, he had no great love, I think, r And I
sometimes wished that he had been a little less fond of
early Italians and a little more intent on getting together a
full representation of the drawings of the Enghsh artists
who really count. However, when his interest was really
roused, he readily became enthusiastic ; and I was very
grateful for his sympathetic reception of the suggestion that
the Museum should acquire Mr. James Reeve’s collection of
Norwich drawings, with its wonderful series of Cotmans.
At that time Cotman’s name had no prestige, the market
value of his drawings was about a tenth that of David Cox’s.
Again, during the latter years of his Keeperdup he grew to
take an ardent interest in the collections of Chinese and
Japanese art, and very greatly enriched them by his
purchases.

* This gift of enthusiasm, still more evident in his literary
preferences, he retained to the end with the keermess of
youth. And indeed under a manner that often seemed
stiff and shy he concealed an emotional and excitable
temperament, capable of occasional explosions. He had
deep fpplings, strong affections and antipathies ; but as a
Museum official he rarely allowed his natural impulsive-
ness to appear. His presence carried authority, he pre-
sided with a due sense of his dignity. A Keeper of a Depart-
ment needs not only to be a scholar, but an administrator :
and on the administrative side, though faults might perhaps
be foimd in details, Colvin maintained a high standard of
smooth and effective working. He did far more than any
of his predecessors, by arrangement and cataloguing, to
make the collections serviceable to students.’

The Keepership of the Prints carries with it a residmice
within the Museum precincts, and it was therefore then
that Colvin’s London life began. Never again did he leave
London except on brief holidays, and his house — at the
comer on the nght as you enter the gates — gradually
became a literary and artistic centre, with Mrs, Sitwell as

THE PRINT ROOM

185

a visiting hostess. Owing to Colvin’s straitened circum-
stances, due to certain family dauns which in his chivalry
he felt himself bound to honour, he could not, although
both of them were free, offer his hand to Mrs. Sitwell, imtil
nearly twenty years later. It was to this house that
Stevenson came, on his visits to London from Bournemouth
from 1884 to 1887.

' During his visits to my house at the British Museum —
“ the many-pillared and the weh-beloved,” as he calls it
in the weh-known set of verses, as though the keepers’
houses stood within the great front colonnade of the Museum,
which they do not, but project in advance of it on either
flank — during such visits,’ says Colvin, ‘ he never showed
an3rthing but the old charm and high courage and patience.
He was able to enjoy somethmg of the company of famous
semors who came seeking his acquaintance, as Browning,
Lowell, Burne-Jones. With such visitors I usually left
him alone, and have at any rate no detailed notes or
memories of conversations hdd by him with them in my
presence.’

These are the well-known verses : —

'TO S. C.

‘ I heard the pulse of the besieging sea
Throb far away all mght. I heard the wind
Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms.

I rose and strolled The isle was all bnght sand.

And flaihng fans and shadows of the palm ;

The heaven all moon and wind and the bhnd vault
The keenest planet slam, for Venus slept.

The kmg, my neighbour, with his host of wives.

Slept in the precmct of the palisade ;

Where single, in the wmd, under the moon.

Among the slumbenng cabins, blazed a fire.

Sole street-lamp and the only sentmel.

‘ To other lands and nights my ftocy tuned —

To London first, and chiefly to your house.

i86 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

The many-piUared and the well-beloved.

There yearning fancy hghted ; there again
In the upper room I lay, and heard far off
The unsleeping city murmur hke a shell ,

The muffled tramp of the Museum guard
Once more went by me , I beheld again
Lamps vainly bnghten the dispeopled street ;

Again I longed for the returning morn.

The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds.

The consentaneous tnll of tiny song
That weaves round monumental cornices
A passing charm of beauty. Most of all.

For your hght foot I weaned, and your knock
That was the glad reveille of my day.

' Lo, now, when to your task in the great house
At mormng through the portico you pass.

One moment glance, where by the pillared wall
Far-voyaging island gods, begnmed with smoke,

Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument
Of faiths forgot and races undivined :

Sit now disconsolate, remembenng well
The pnest, the victim, and the songful crowd.

The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice,

Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.

As far as these from their ancestral shnne.

So far, so foreign, your divided fnends
Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.*

Two or three letters from Laura Tennant belong to this
chapter : very slight, but Ml of a charming personality.
Miss Tennant was a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant. One
of her sisters, Charlotte, had married Lord Ribblesdale,
and another, Margot, was one day to marry Mr. Asquith,
afterwards Lord Oxford. This is the first letter : —

' The Glen, InnevUxthen. [1884 ]

' Dear Mr. Colvin, — ^My brother-in-law Lord Ribblesdale
is anxious to do some reading at the British Museum and
I feel sure you could be of great use to him — ^both as to his
writing and as to his reading. He will give you this letter
w^ I have made bold to write remembering y^ kind words

THE PRINT ROOM

187

to me at Mr. Earle’s and at 35 Gros. Square when you pro-
mised* to help me in any way you could. I am afraid my
literary powers are likdy to remain latent all my life but
Ribblesdale I feel sure has a future before him and a gift
of style very unusual I shi*^ like you above all people to
encourage him and to get to know him. He is besides
being a brother to me, a great friend of mine — I am sure
you will be interested in him I am very anxious he sW**
work : he has the power and the will ; a little success is the
spur he needs. After all because a man is a good judge of
a horse and rides well across a stiff country — and belongs
to the tottering House of Lords it is no reason he syi* be
debarred from all reasonable pursuits.

‘ I am going to Rome for two months the beginning of
Feb. and will not be m London till after Easter. I hope
to see you then —

‘ Let me hear from you about this if it does not bore you.
-Yrs. idways sincerely, . .

Again, soon afterwards, written m red ink :

‘ I won’t start the male fashion of dating letters ! — I mU
be feminine.

* The Glen, Innerleithen, N B,

‘ Dear Mr. Colvin, — ^Thank you very much for y' kind
letter. I am a good friend but certainly a casual corre-
spondent — ^most unreasonably — ^because letters are my
diiefest joy — and indeed I entnely sympathize with Eve —
I stf^ have done the same had I lived in a benighted garden
where no postman’s knock was ever heard to relieve the
monotony of wild beasts’ noises — Pared Post wi<i have
prevented the Fall I am sure —

‘ As for what you so graciously say about me, I am sure
I could do something if I had the talent of expression but
I am dumb when I feel — and generally also incoherent. As
long as I live I shall have keen literary instincts but whether
they will devdop remains to be proved.

i88 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ What do you mean about my Being. Every one bes.
It 's not greatly to my credit that my mother brou^t me
into this muddled world.

‘ Oh ! dear, I daresay it 's as good as the one I left — I am
quite ahne — ^here — with two infants and a dog, I read and
write all day and revel in my own society. I quite agree
with Alexandre Dumas who, when asked how he had
enjoyed a fearfully dull party, said “ I shi*! not have enjoyed
it if J had not been there.”

' How dehghtful one is to oneself.

‘ I have just finished the Carlyle. I always am behind
the rest of the world.

‘ I delight in it, and think Carlyle comes out better than
ever, tho’ I regret his baldness in the artistic faculty —

‘ What shall I read ? I am not sure about Rome — pro-
bably it wiU never come off. D.V, never lets things come to
pass except things one never wants.

‘ I shall be in London Srmday the ist or 2nd is it. If you
are in town will you call ? between three-thirty and four-
thirty ? We have had a very family Xmas — and a happy-
family New Year. I am glad you liked Ribblesdale. He is
nicer than I am.

‘ I am going to stay with my — our — friend Mrs. Homer
on the 28th. What message shall I give her ?

‘ With all the nicest from myself, — yrs,'

' Lauea Tennant

' P.S. — Forgive my having written with my heart’s blood I
I rather Hke it — I shall be here tiU the 22nd of Jan.’

Fronde’s Carlyle’s Life in London was published at the
end of 1884.

The next letter tells of the writer’s engagement to Alfred
L3rttdton, the barrister and cricketer.

‘ Easton Grey, Malmesbury, 27 Jan. ’86.

‘Dear Mr. Colvin, — Lady Ribblesdale writes to me
about yr. dinner and sayd die told you about my engage-

THE PRINT ROOM

189

ment w** was v. hard lines as I wanted to announce it myself
to the*sound of trumpets. Well don’t you think I am very
clever to have resisted to such purpose ? I don't think
you will denounce matrimony when you come to dine with
us some future day and you see a woman not given over to
jam pots and towels and yet perfectly happy and what 's
more making her husband happy for I promise you I shall
do that.

‘ Of course I shall not change to any of my Friends and
I hope you won’t say what most people say, I mean — that
I shall quite forget my old Friends m the Archipelago of
new ones.

‘ I don’t thmk it is at all ideal to lose one’s individuality
and to pick up scraps of one’s husband’s and I don’t intend
to change one inch of myself as far as my Fnendships go —
tho’ I hope to develop ah that lies fallow of good in me and
to starve all that is rampant of bad and there is lots ! Wish
me good, dear Mr. Colvin. Happiness cannot always be
and I wid rather have what is Eternal wished me. — Yrs. in
sincerity, Laura Tennant

‘ This is the 85th sheet today, so forgive writing !

‘ I am so afraid I shan’t be in London on Sunday ! Write
to me to Wilbuty House Salisbury please.’

Laura Tennant did not survive the birth of her first child,
in 1886, to the grief of countless friends.

In 1885 I find this note from Whistler, expressing his
willingness to give his ‘ Ten O’clock ’ at Cambridge : —

‘ Dear Professor, — I accept with pleasure the flattering
invitation you have conveyed to me from the gentlemai at
Cambridge.

‘Therefore Iwill arrange to come to you on then. March —
and deliver the address that I gave here in Prince's Hall.

‘ With many thanks for the courteous hospitality jrou
ofier me, — ^Very sincerdy yours.

‘ J. McN. Whistler ’

190 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

In 1886 Colvin was elected a member of the Literary
Society, a company of authors, artists, statesmen, and men
of inteltectual activity, who met to dine together once a
month, and stiU do so. The ongin of the Literary Soaety
is not too clear, the earliest information belonging to 1803,
when there were four members. In 1804 there were
twenty-seven, the President being the Dean of Westminster,
Dr. Vincent. The first recorded dinner was April 3, 1807,
when there were thirty-three members, and Sir James Bland
Burges was President. Among the members were WiUiam
Wordsworth, William Lisle Bowles, John Philip Kemble,
William Gifford, Samuel Rogers, and ‘ Conversation ’
Sharp.

At the time Colvin joined the Literary Society it con-
sisted of the foEowing members, in their order of election :
The Right Hon. Spencer H. Walpole (President), the Duke
of ArgyE, the Earl of Carnarvon, Gathome Hardy, Sir
Douglas Galton, Sir Charles Newton, John Anthony Froude,
General E. B. Hamley, Matthew Arnold, Sir John Lubbock,
Lord Chief-Justice Coleridge, Bishop Magee, the Earl of
Selbome, Sir M. E. Grant-Duff, Sir James Paget, William
E. H. Lecky, Sir Stafford Northcote, Vice-Admiral Astley,
Cooper Key, Dean Church, Lord Carlingford, Sir Garnet
Wolseley, Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Mr. Justice Denman, Sir
Frederick Burton, Arthur J. Balfour, Sir James Fitzjames
Stephen, Lord Walsingham, the Hon. Edward Stanhope,
Frederick Locker-Lampson, J. E. Boehm, C. S. C.
Bowen, Spencer Walpole, Professor Flower, Professor
Huxley, Canon Liddon, Lord L3d;ton, Lord Aberdare, Henry
James, the Earl of Dalhousie. There were also the foEowing
honorary members and supernumerary members : Sir
Richard Owai, Sir Henry Wentworth Adand, Professor
Jebb, Archbidiop Thomson, Henry Reeve, George Rich-
mond, R.A., and the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.

In due time Colvin became Treasurer and then President.
At his first dinner, on December 6, 1886, his feEow-diners
were Lord Coleridge, Sir Edward Hamley, Charles Newton,

THE PRINT ROOM 191

Dean Liddon, Douglas Gallon, Henry Reeve, and Andrew
Lang.

Colvin resigned from the Presidency after the dinner of
March 7, 1921, and was succeeded by Mr. John Bailey. The
company on Colvin’s last evening as President consisted of
John Bailey, Harold Baker, Maurice Baring, W. Bateson,
Basil ChampnejTS, Julian Corbett, Lord Crewe, Geoffrey
Dawson, Edward Elgar, Arthur EUiot, Herbert Fisher,
Captain Harry Graham, W. P. Ker, E. V. Lucas, John
Murray, B. L. Richmond, John Sargeaunt, Lord Sumner,
G. M. Trevelyan, Hugh Walpole.

Although no longer President, Colvin contmued to attend
the Literary Society’s dinners until ill-health forced him
reluctantly to cease. His last attendance was on March 2,
1925, when the company consisted of John Bailey, Harold
Baker, Lord Balfour, Sir James Barrie, A. C. Benson, the
Archbidiop of Canterbury, the Hon. Evan Charteris,
Geoffrey Dawson, Captain Harry Graham, Sir Edward
Grigg, Sir Ian Hamilton, E. V. Lucas, John Murray, Sir
Henry Newbolt, Sir James Rennell Rodd, J. St. Loe
Stradiey, Lord Sumner, G. M. Trevelyan, and Mr. Edward
Wood (now Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India).

Colvin’s first book on Keats, the monograph in the ‘ English
Men of Letters Series,’ was published in 1887, and it may be
said to have crystallized his reputation as a critic of the
finest discrimination, distinguished style, and scrupulous
care. His every effort, even a brief review, had been of a
piece ; but in Keats he found a subject to kindle all his
fires. Many of the letters bear upon this admirable work.
A vary great old lady, to whom Lowdl paid m veise one of
his golden compliments and to whom, in her way. Lady
Colvin was a successor — Anne Procter, widow of ‘ Barry
CcamwaJl,’ friend and biographer of Lamb — ^wrote to Colvin
in 1887, when ^e was nearly eighty-eight, to thank him for
sending her his Keats.

• ‘ At present,’ wrote Mrs. Procter, ' I have only cut the
pages, admired the paper & printing — and read where you

192 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

have done me the honour to mention me. What a fortunate
blunder that was of mine about the eyes — It has been the
cause of handing me down to postenty ! I use the word
blunder but I stick to blue. As to the brother, I don’t care
for brothers. If you have one, does he know the colour of
your eyes ? Think over your friends and see how seldom
you know the colomr of anyone’s eyes. . . .

'There is a feeling of profound sadness comes over me
when I see a work hke yours, and think how little the man
whom you have embalmed, ever hoped for fame. How
while he hved, he had so few admirers.’

The reference is to a passage m Colvin’s monograph on
Keats, where in collecting evidence as to the colour and
quality of the poet’s eyes, Colvin says : ‘ A shrewd and
honoured survivor of those da3rs, herself of many poets the
frequent theme and valued Mend, — need I name Mrs.
Procter ? — ^has recorded the impression the same eyes have
left upon her, as those of one who had been looking on some
glorious sight.' In a note in the appendix Colvin adds :

' Mrs. Procter’s memory, however, betrayed her when she
informed Lord Houghton that the colour of Keats’s eyes
was blue. That they were pure hazel-brown is certain,
from the evidence alike of C. C. Clarke, of George Keats
and his wife (as transmitted by their daughter Mrs. Speed
to her son), and from the various portraits painted from
life and posthumously by Severn and Hilton. Mrs. Procter
calls his hair auburn : Mrs. Speed had heard from her
father and mother that it was “ golden red,” which may
mean nearly the same thing : I have seen a lock in the
possession of Sir Charles Dilke, and diould rather call it a
warm brown, likely to have looked gold in the lights.'

Here are other letters. From Matthew Arnold :

‘ Pains Hill Cottage, Cdbham, Surrey,
‘June 26th, 1887.

‘ My dear Colvin, — I finidied your Keais yesterday on*
a journey frmn Westmorland to London. I would not

THE PRINT ROOM

thank you for it until I had read it. You have got the
Life rightly written at last — ^its story and personages made
clear. It is not much of a story, nor are the personages
great, but one is glad to have them right, for the sake of
Keats and of otir conception of him. The criticism all
through the volume mterested me extremely ; you never
gu^, but the tone of admiration mounts in some instances
too high for me. What is good in Endymion is not, to my
mmd, so good as you say, and the poem as a whole I could
wi^ to have been suppressed and lost. I really resent the
space it occupies in the volume of Keats’s poetry. The
Hyperion is not a poetic success, a work, as Keats saw, and
it was well he did not make ten books of it ; but that, of
course, deserves nevertheless the strongest admiration, and
its loss would have been a signal loss to poetry ; not so as
regards the Endymion.

‘ But the value you assign to the “ Bdle Dame sans Merci ”
is simply amazing to me.

' On the whole, however, it is a long time since I have read
any criticism with such cordial pleasure and agreement as
this volume. The remarks on Spenser are excellent ; my
high pleasure began there. How true it is that one’s first
master, or the first work of him one apprehends, strikes the
note for us ; I feel this of the 4th Eclogue of Virgil, which I
took into my system at g years old, having been flogged
through the preceding Eclogues and learnt nothing from
them ; but " Ultima Cumaei,” etc. has been a strong influ-
ence with me ever since. All the remarks on the diction
of Keats, and indeed of others too, are good ; it would be
hard to beat, for truth and utihty, the three or four lines at
the bottom of page 146. Very good and just, also, is all
you say about the sense in which Keats is and is not Greek ;
in fact, as you truly say, he is on the whole not Greek.
“ Loading every rift of a subject with ore ” is not Greek ;
I had written dan^m'ous against the phrs^e, and lower down
on the page I found you calling attention to the danger.
The extract from Landor’s letter was new to me ; it sums
N

194 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

the matter up very well. If Keats could have lived he
might have done anything ; but he could not have hved, his
not living, we must consider, was more than an accident.
Once more, I thank and congratulate you, and remain, —
Ever sincerely yours, Matthew Arnold

‘ I should say most pressingly, Come down for a Sunday,
only we are crammed in this cottage at present by having
with us my American daughter and her nurse and baby.’ ^

The passage referred to by Arnold was either this, on
page 147 : ' In the execution, he had done injustice to the
power of poetry that was in him by lettmg both the exuber-
ance of fancy and invention, and the caprice of rhyme, run
away with him, and by substituting for the worn-out verbal
currency of the last century a semi-Elizabethan coinage of
his own, less acceptable by habit to the literary sense, and
often of not a whit greater real poetic value ’ ; or this, on
page 151 : ‘ To imagine and to write like this is the privilege
of the best poets only, and even the best have not often com-
bined such concentrated force and beauty of conception
with such a limpid and flowing ease of narrative. Poetry
had always come to Keats, as he considered it ought to
come, as naturally as leaves to a tree ; and now that it came
of a quality like this, he had fairly earned the right, which
his rash youth had too soon arrogated, to look down on the
fine artificers of the school of Pope.’ There was nothing
applicable on page 146.

From Coventry Patmore :

' Hastings , June 16, 1887.

‘ My dear Colvin, — I have been reading your Keais
and find to my pleasure and relief that you have said every-
thing about your subject that I meant to say. I have
never read a piece of criticiatn so warmly appreciative and
yet so severely just.

' I forget whether I sent you my new 2 vol. edition pub-
lidied about a year ago. If not I will send it to you. In

^ In the FitzwiUiam Museum.

THE PRINT ROOM

195

it I have given all the little work of my life its final finish,
and removed, I hope, all the flies that damaged the oint-
ment, in the old edition. — Yours very truly,

' Coventry Patmore ’ ^

From Frederick Locker-Lampson :

‘ Rowfant, Crawley, Sussex,
‘22 June 1887.

‘ My dear Colvin, — I do not know how many copies of
Keats you have given away, but I am sure that none of the
recipients have received and read with greater pleasure
than myself — my sincere thanks for the beautiful large-
paper copy.

' The book came on the i 6 th : I began it at once &
finished it only yesterday. There is a good deal of reading
in it.

‘ You have given us an admirable portrait 0/ the poet,
formed out of fragments of earlier notices, & you have
added a good portion of very valuable new matter.

' I once met Miss Re3molds who knew Keats, &
whose recollections harmonized with your view, & I once
had a talk with Haydon, who had a defiantly attractive
manner, but Landseer, who knew him much better than
I did, told me he was destitute of principle. I saw Mme
Llanos once or twice in Rome — and have somewhere
written down my talk with Leigh Hunt and others.

‘ Old Severn gave me a photograph of his last sketch of
Keats, and I have pasted it, & a fragment of Keats MS.,
in your volume, with a desire to do it honour ! I
have two vols. Annals of the Fine Arts {1819-1820) in
which the Soimet to Haydon, to the G. Um, & to the
Ni ghting ale are given. Have these books any real interest ?
Among other MSS. of Keats I have Act V of his Otlm.

‘ Shall you send me a reply to my circular about the
Literary Society ? — ^Yours . . .

'F. L.-L .'2

X aad a Ja the Fitzwilham Museum.

196 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ 29 De Vere Gardens, Kensmgton, W.,
June 15, ’87

' My dear Colvin, — I have read with delight and thank-
fulness your precious hook : Keats may stay there, just as
he was, and be loved and honoured accordingly. Every
touch, to the minutest, of your added knowledge is so far
pure gain to our appreciation of his character. There is
more of cnticism than usually goes with biography — so
much the better, for yours is ]ust as it should be. All
congratulations to you ! — Yours sincerely,

‘ Robert Browning ’ ^

‘ I Marloes Road, Kensington, W , May 5

' Dear Colvin, — In writing a brief pot-boiler on Keats
for an edition, I have of comrse used your book. I don’t
see why you should add to it, it is about as good as it can
be already. However, you may have materials.

‘ The Dean of Sahsbury tells me that Lockhart was art and
part in getting Keats republished by W. H. Smith (two
editions). I don’t know the dates, but must look into it.
He says J. G. L. particularly admired the Odes, also that,
to please Sterling, who was dying, he offered to pubhsh
anything he liked to send. He did send a review of Tenny-
son, which nearly gave Croker fits, he was in a great rage
(1842-43). Thus my poor old J. G. L. brought forth fruits
of repentance. — Yours very truly, A. Lang

‘ Some one told me last night that J. G. L. and his wife
were wretched together ! Oh Lord, what liars we mortals
be.’ 2

In 1887 the Papers of Fleeming Jenkin appeared from
the house of Longman, under the e^torship of Colvin and
J. A. Ewing, now Sir Alfred and Principal of Edinburgh
University. Jenkin’s vigorous and versatile mind has great
attraction, but the special value of the book lay in the
biography of his friend which Stevenson had written for it. .

In the FitzwiUiain, Museum.

THE PRINT ROOM

197

Colvin’s chaxacter sketch of Jenkin and of his mfe (from
which I have already quoted) is among the best things in his
Memones and Notes: ‘The variety and genuineness of
JenMn’s intellectual interests proceeded in truth from the
keeimess and healthiness of his interest in life itself. Such
keenness shone visibly from his looks, which were not hand-
some but in the highest degree animated, sparkling, and
engaging, the very warts on his coimtenance seeming to
heighten the vivaaty of its expression. The amount of his
vital energy was extraordinary, and no man ever took his
own experience with more zest or entered with a readier
sympathy into that of others. An honest blow he was
alwajrs prepared to take, and every honest pleasure he
relished with delight. He loved to do well all he did, and
to take not only a part, but a lead, in bodily and other
pastimes, as shooting, fishing, mountaineering, yachting,
skating, dancing, acting and the rest. But in conversation
and human intercourse lay perhaps his chief pleasure of all.
His manly and loyal nature was at all times equally ready
with a Imock-down argument and a tear of S3mipathy.
Chivalrous and tender-hearted in the extreme in all the real
relations and probing circumstances of life, he was too free
himself from small or morbid susceptibilities to be very
sparing of them in others, and to those who met and talked
with Mm for the first time might easily seem too trendiant
in reply and too pertinacious in discussion. But you soon
found out that if he was the most unflinching of critics and
disputants, he was also the most unfailing and ever service-
able of friends. Moreover, to what pleased him in your
company or conversation he was instantly and attractively
responsive. He would eagerly watch for and pounce upon
your remarks, and the futile or half-sincere among them he
would toss aside with a prompt and wholesome contempt,
Ms eye twinkling the while between humour, kindness, and
annoyance ; while on othas he would seize with gusto, and
turn them appreciatively over and inside out imtil he had
made the most of them. In my own intercourse with him.

198 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

no subject was more frequently discussed between us than
the social advantages and disadvantages of sdenti&c and
mechanical discovery. I used to speak with dislike of the
“ progress ” and “ prosperity ” which cause multitudes to
teem in grimy alleys where before a few had been scattered
over wholesome fields, and with apprehension of the possible
results of his own last invention on population and on
scenery. He would thereupon assaU. me as a puling senti-
mentalist ; I would retort on him as a materialist and
Phihstine.’

In 1891 Colvin issued through Messrs Macmillan an
edition of The Letters of John Keats.

Let me add to this chapter some letters from Andrew
Lang. Colvin first met Andrew Lang at Mentone when he
was staying with Stevenson in 1874, and he gives in Memories
and Notes a piquant passage contrasting the two young
Scotsmen Andrew Lang died m 1912, and Colvm, writing
in 1921, says : ' It seems indeed but the other day that we
had to mourn the loss from among us of that kind, learned,
whimsical, many-faceted character — scholar, critic, poet,
journalist, folk-lorist, humanist, and humorist ; and in the
mind’s eye of many of us there stiU hves freshly the aspect
of the half-silvered hair setting off the aU but black eyebrows
and gipsy eyes ; of the chiselled features, the smiling languid
face and grace behind which there lurked intellectual
energies so keen and varied, accomplidiments so high, so
insatiable a spint of curiosity and research under a guise
so airy and playfol.’

The series of notes from Andrew Lang — very swift and
practical — touch upon Scottish history in relation to Steven-
son ; and the part played by John Gibson Lockhart, whose
biography Lang was writing, in the tragedy of Keats. There
are dates but no years. I make a few characteristic extracts,
and take this opportunity of again expressing my regret,
which hundreds of readers must share, that by his own wish
no collection of Andrew Lang’s letters may be made.

This is the first letter from which I quote : —

ANDREW LANG

FROM THE PAl>TlNrG BY SIR V . B RICHMOND

THE PRINT ROOM

199

‘ I hope you wiU do a regular life of Keats. I don’t
believft anyone has a higher opinion of him than I have, as
a man and a poet. The Highland tour really killed him,
" not Launcelot or another.” ’

Some years later Colvin was to do what Lang required.

‘ The pamphlet is " A Supplement to the Trial of James
Stewart, &c.” by a Bystander, London 1753.

' James was hanged on November 8, 1752.

‘ R. L. S. took James Mohr, the meeting at T3mdrum,
and a great deal more from this tract, which is in the Signet
Library here,’

— ^The reference, of course, is to Catriona.

‘ Do you know whether he [R. L. S.] means to do my
Prince Charlie tale ? If not, I 'd make a push at it, and
introduce Alan Breck, who is a historical character, if I
please. He was really a tall man, despite Stevenson.’

‘ Swinburne’s efforts to make him self out an athlete who
has breasted mountain slopes with the Master [Jowett] are
very funny. At least, in my time the Master’s efforts to
cross a bum were plucky, but quavering.

'However he ends up all right. The Master never
criticized bards to me. I think he only discovered Swinburne
after the men had found him out,’

In an article in the Nineteenih Century for December 1893,
Swinburne had written thus of Jowett : ‘ The physical energy
with which he would press up a hill-side or mountain-side —
Malvern or SchdiaUion — ^was very agreeable and admirable
to witness : but twice at least during a week’s winter es-
cursion in Cornwall I knew, and had reason to know, what it
was to feel nervous : for he would follow along the broken
rampart of a ruined castle, and stand without any toudb,
of support at the edge of a magnificent precipice, as though
he had been a younger man bred up from boyhood to the
scaling of diffs and the breasting of breakers.’

The next extract refers to Lang’s interest in occult matters
and his inquiry into the famous Cock Lane ghost. Colvin,

200 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

I assume, had deprecated such studies, and had probably
urged him to keep to solid ground : ' Israel is joined'' to his
spooks, tin he finishes a book called Cock Lane. There is so
much Anthropology, Folk Lore, and Bibliography in my
spooks, and so few people can, or do combme these topics,
tibat I seem called mto the field. As to weakening the mind,
look at Wallace ! But I never go near mesmerists or
mediums, never did, nor will. I don’t think the matter
important, but it does vex the scientific gents, a set of
Philistines. Moreover, so please you, other studies weaken
the mind, even Art has begotten a very sickly lot, not very
moral neither, I need not mention names. Then think of
BunetaUism, or any hobby. My mind to me a kingdom is,
and when I have Mshed Cock Lane, I cast the dust of the
dead off my feet. The dead might be better employed, and
no decent “ corp ” ever walks. I keep an eye on my mental
biceps, and I wish my physical one were in no worse
condition.’

Finally, another word on spooks and their fascination to
this fastidious inquirer : ‘ As for Cock Lane, I may never
produce it, though it is nearly ready. It gets one into such
bad intellectual society, with some exceptions. Yet when
I think of S. Joseph of Capertino, — “ why are their graces
hid,” in the BoUandists ? It is so funny. It was a toss up
if he was a Saint or a Medium, and the Church gave the
batsman the benefit of the doubt. I really t hink the S.P.R.
[Society of Psychical Research], that is, F. W. H. M. [Myers],
has shewn much pluck and perseverance. Yet the hero is
not quite d mon grL There is something at the bottom of
it all, somethmg uncomfortable, far from consolatory:
rather low: I wish there wasn’t. The cosmos is a rum
place : she ’s a rum one, is Nature/

CHAPTER XIV

GEORGE MEREDITH
1885 AND ON

Colvin tells us that he first met Meredith in 1878, ' and
then only to shake hands on the introduction of Louis
Stevenson. Stevenson was sta3dng at the Burford Bridge
Inn with his parents, busy upon the early part of his New
Arabian Nights (the Suicide Club chapters), and finding
himself thus almost at Meredith’s door, had sought leave,
sensitively and shyly, not without fear of a rebuff, to pay
him the homage of a beginner to a master,’

Meredith was then fifty and was at work on The Egoist.
‘ As regards my own relations with Meredith,’ Colvin
continues, ' I have told how I shook hands with him across
a stile in 1878. But my intimacy did not begin till after
the death of his second wife in 1885 and my own removal
from my previous headquarters at Cambndge to take up
work at the Briti^ Museum. The days of his neglect were
then passing away. ... At the same time Ms bodily,
though not Ms mtellectual, vigour was b^[inning by
gradual degrees to flag. The reddish brown had quite
faded from Ms hair and given place to the shade between
grizzled and silvery that went so well with his habitual,
unvarying suit of warm hght-grey set off by a bright scarlet
tie. But both of hair and beard the crop was as rich and
wavy as ever ; and the features retained unimpaired, alike
their flne cutting and their firm resolute air. His voice had
not at all lost — ^indeed it never lost — ^its strong virile timhre,
"hor his utterance its authoritative rotundity and fulness ; for
his speech was ever dear-cut and complete, and the fasMon,

SOI

202 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

growing, I fear, in our modem English conversation of
lazily mumbling and muttering at one another from behind
our teeth slurred, half-articulate sounds instead of formed
words, had no countenance from him . . .

‘ Divers common friends have sissured me, and I can
easily believe, that the master was never more himself
than when he occasionally received on tteir Sunday after-
noon peregrinations the company of walkers whom Leslie
Stephen had organized under the name of the Sunday
Tramps. None but the youngest of my readers will need
telling how Stephen excelled no less as an athletic walker
and mountaineer than as a masterly critic, editor, and
biographer • “ long Leslie Stephen,” as we used commonly
to call him , for long he was alike of back, leg, and stride, of
nose and of beard (the fine forked and flowing auburn
beard depicted in Watts’s weU-known portrait). He had
no small talk, and to strangers or ordinary acquaintances
was apt to seem a character even sardonically dry and shy.
But no man had a greater power of wmnmg the love of
those to whom he felt himself drawn. He had for wife
first one of the most delightful of women, and after her death
another who was also one of the most beautiful, and for
devoted men-friends a pick of the choicest spirits of his
tune, both English and American. Of these friends Merediili
was one of the closest.

‘A contrast,’ says Colvin, ‘marked Meredith’s “diow
conversation” in mixed company and his intimate talk
in the privacy of friendship. No man could be more
gravely or more sagaciously sympathetic when the
appeal for sympathy was made, or could put more of
bracing life-wisdom into advice on matters of conduct
when his advice was sought. To women (at least to the
right kind of women, for with sentimentalists or self-
flatterers of either sex he had small patience) he could
be the most chivalrous-hearted and tenderly understanding
and honourably helpful of men, as beseemed the creator
of Lucy Feverel and Rose Jocelyn and Ren4e and Clara

GEORGE MEREDITH

203

Middleton, of Rhoda and Dahlia and Diana and the rest :
his tender and discourse in these respects being in life and
in literature entirely and admirably the same. In tHe-d,-
Uta intercourse he rarely, in my expenence, mounted the
high intellectual or fantastic stilts, but would enter simply,
with the power and incisiveness of a master but on perfectly
free and equal terms, on almost any subject of human or
historical or hterary discussion.

‘A very frequent subject of talk between us was the
duty and necessity for England of the obligation to national
service. He conceived military training to be a thing desir-
able in every state, desirable for the sake of the manhood,
the self-respect, the physical and moral health of its citizens,
and desirable for ourselves above all peoples. He held that
if our population would not shake off its carelessness and
sloth, bom of plethora, and subimt to that discipline, as
wen as to other wholesome disciphnes of mind and body,
our day was done. He believed that a more sternly trained
race hke the Germans would surely wm against us and
deserve to win. These convictions at the same time did
not shake his attachment to the Liberal party in the state,
which almost to a man was vehemently opposed to them.
When I urged that he should strive to convert his political
friends and should in writing declare his mind on the ques-
tion in terms more calculated to strike home than the
cryptic utterances which he puts into the mouths of a
Colney Durance or a Simeon FeneHan, he was apt to answer
as though the matter were one which concerned him not
as one of ourselves, but only as a critic and onlooker.

' In discussions on England and her character and
destinies he would always separate himself from his country-
men and say " You English.” This attitude seemed to
me to be due partly to a cherished consciousness of, or at
all events behef m, his own purely Celtic blood (his father
having been Welsh and his mother Irish), partly to the sense
of alienation from the sympathies of his countrymen which
had been forced on his proud and sensitive nature by their

204 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

long neglect of Ms work. Dearly as ke loved, and deeply
beyond all men as he knew, the English soil, he would
sometimes inveigh against defects of the Englidi mind and
character in the tone not only of a detached stranger but
almost of an enemy. This from sudi a man, by that time
at any rate recognized as one of the glories of our age and
country, was a thing that I used sometimes to find hard to
bear. The true key to Ms mind in the matter is perhaps
to be found in Ms words written in 1870 : “ I am neither
German nor French, nor, tmless the nation is attacked,
English. I am European and Cosmopolitan — for humanity !
The nation wMch shows most worth is the nation I love and
reverence." Nearly thirty years later, in one of Ms very
last letters, he writes : “ As to our country, if the people
were awake, they would submit to be drilled. . . . The
fear of imposing drill for at least a year seems to me a fore-
cast of the national tragedy.” Conceive what would have
been his scorn for those who shrieked against the duty of
imposing national service even after the outbreak of the
world war, dunng those months of deadly peril to all that
England stands for and holds dear.'

After reading Memories and Notes, in 1921, Sir James
Barrie wrote : ‘ Hearty thanks for sending me the BoJihiH
paper. I don’t see how a thing of the kind could be more
de%htfully done, best of all I think is what you say of
Meredith’s talk — at all events, it seems to me that in those
passages you place him as he really was, and I don’t think it
has been done before.’

‘ I think,’ Colvin continues, ‘ one of the things wMch
made Meredith tolerate my company was the interest,
puzzled and fretted interest though it often was, wMch I
took in his poetry. Very much of this had always repelled
me by its obscurity : but among the rest, the things rda-
tivdy dear, there were some that seemed to me in various
kinds unsurpassed, as in the simple 13010 kind The Sweet 0’
the Year and Autumn, Even Song ; in more strenuous and
ambitious kinds Mdampus ; Earth and a Wedded Woman ;

GEORGE MEREDITH

GEORGE MEREDITH

205

Love in the VaUey, surdy as ridi and original a love-lyric,
or lyric And idyU in one, as was ever wntten. Equally pre-
eminent among lyrics political seemed to me the ode On
France written after her overthrow in 1870 and foretellmg
for her much such a resurrection as we afterwards witnessed.
I was proportionately disappointed at the difficulty with
which I found m3?gelf trying to follow the odes On Napoleon
and On French History when he read them to me, then
fresh written, in 1898.’

In 1915, when Colvm was preparing his lecture on Con-
centration in Poetry, he returned, as we shall see, to a remark
made to him by Meredith, for his inspiration, and devoted
much space to an analysis of his friend’s Muse.

Among Meredith’s letters is one to Mrs. SitweU, who seems
to have been trymg to find a governess for Meredith’s daugh-
ter (now Mrs. Sturgis). The first to Colvm, in 1886, is a
charactenstic invitation : ‘ You will dehght me by coming.
But if it does not smt you to hit on Saturday for the Sunday,
then decide to stay over Monday ; for you know this country,
which is a home of woods, & London on a Monday, when
pious Philistines & their other end, the ragtails, are but half
emerged from the front & hmd of a common drunkenness,
is desolating to the soul. So give yourself to me & Grace
for Monday.’

In the following note we have a reference either to rival
governesses, or to alternative services rendered. Again
Meredith is true to t3q)e : ‘ The difference between £yo &
£100, gapes ogrely. I will draw it closer, if only for the
sake of appearances. But, as I had to calculate, the girl
will have to come to London weekly for certain lessons.
You know her & can teU the lady of her that she is a friendly
puss. There is not alive a more loyal little woman.’

In March 1893 we have this : ‘ The look out of window
is as if one saw Nature’s picked skuU. But in an hom the
S.W. can give it the face of youth & show how ver egelidus
refert tepores. The sky winks for a genial Sunday— per-
haps the Saturday. I dare not prcgnosticate to a Londoner,

2o6 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

who is unpardoning at a disappointment. But this week
or next or anywhen, be bold, I say.’

In 1898, when Meredith was trying to make a play out
of The Egoist, he thus describes the task : ‘ While you inhale
it [the name of Gastein] I am dialogumg The Egoist — a
dreary walk backward.’ The last letter, dated November
24, 1901, IS m response to a request, sent through Colvin,
for permission to include something of Meredith’s in an
anthology :

' My dear Colvin, — Mr. Bmyon’s Poems are known to
me, & I think hopefully of them. I do not gape for work
of mine to be brought before the pubhc, but if he has taken
heartily to the notion in this case — not merely following a
hint, — I shall not object. As to the verse, supposing that
he chooses verse, — I would counsel him not to be guided by
his master, though, for me, I catch the dramatic accent
intended by Mr. Bridges in the run of his hnes. Reviewers
& the public are conservative m the matter of blank verse :
they take no account of spondees (got by proper names) &
the ducks & drakes of double p3nrrhics to present emotion.
Perhaps they are right — when the iambic is not too stiff. —
Ever yours, George Meredith ’

Meredith died m 1909.

Before passmg on to new names I should "like to quote a
passage from an anon37mous review of One of Ow Conquerors
in the National Review written by Mrs. Sitwdl. So few
examples of her literary work are identifiable ihat I am gla 4
to print it both for its abihty and its subject matter. In
this book she says, ‘ Mr. Meredith is at once at his worst
and at his best ; more Meredithian than ever in language
and manner, but more than ever a searcher of the heart of
man, and especially of woman. No one can number among
Mr. Meredith’s shortcomings sentimentality, failure of
insight, or a hand that duinks from using the scalpel. The
more ought good women, and those who believe in them,
to be grateful to him for the treasures of love, loyalty, and

GEORGE MEREDITH 207

tenderness with which he endows the honourable maids and
mothers »of his creating. But in order to come at these
treasures what a quickset hedge of thorns does this most
perverse of gifted writers drag us through ! For whole
chapters we are made to wince and dance with impatience
at his exasperating literary attitude, and then in the next
we are brought to^ur knees with admiration. In dealing
with the essential human emotions and relations of the
mother and daughter, who are the heromes of his tale, he
diows a strength and delicacy of handling that can hardly
be overpraised, and from

‘ “ The trembhng living wire
Of those unusual stnngs ”

strikes harmonies as moving as they are fresh. In all that
concerns these two lovely and lovable women, around whom
the real interest of the book is centred, there is scarcely a
false note.’

The following letter from Mr Douglas Freshfield, the Alpine
explorer, to Colvm after the publication of Memories and
Notes may round oh this chapter. It is dated January 19,
1922 : ‘ I have been enjoymg your reminiscences, and when
I got to Meredith and your discussion with him as to Pre-
servation of Natural Beauty and his contradictory attitude
on it I was led to turn to a drawer where I have kept a few
letters and find this wh. seems to the point . —

‘ " Oct. 16, igo8.

‘ “ Those old days of the Tramps are lively in my mind.

I know you’re a Keeper of Adidown Forest. My own
quarrel with present-day developments lies in the hectoring
of lovely open country by hideous villas. I have been
motoring over Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and feel what the
old saying ‘ eyesore ’ means. Yet it signifies increase of
wealth and the absence of wealthy proprietors. So I am
-struck dumb. — Your faithful

‘ “ Geoege Meeedith ”

2o8 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ I envy you/ Mr. Freshfield continues, ‘ your power of
rememberuig conversations without notes. Most people can
only recoUect what they said themselves ! I am glad you
stand up for Rossetti’s poetry. He always has seemed to
me one of the few masters of the sonnet — ^which A. T,
[Tennyson] called “ dancing m chains.” ’

CHAPTER XV

MRS. R. 1. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II
THE SOUTH SEAS

1887-1892

Stevenson’s published correspondence tells much of what
happened after he left Bournemouth and England for the
South Seas ; but even more can be learned from his wife’s
vivid pen.

I quote freely from her many letters, chiefly to her dear
Custodian but also to Mrs. Sitwell, during this period of
voyaging. Some of them have already appeared in the
Empire Review. There are also three which, in order to
complete the story of the South Seas adventure, Colvin
included in the edition of Stevenson’s correspondence.
Naturally I do not reprint those here, but readers of these
others may like to refer to them.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From Saranac Lake, Adiron-
dack Mts., December 6 [1887] : ' The Hanging Judge,
amid much dissension and general acrimony, has been
fini^ed. I want to go somewhere where people have not
only no intellects, but no pretence to intdlect. I had
better return to Bournemouth for that. Louis is very
well here, and no cold has fastened upon him, as yet, thoi^h
he las had threateninp which have miraculously dis-
appeared. I hardly dare write it with the fear of nemesis
in my mind, but Louis has not, ance he left England,
brought up one drop of blood from his lungs. He looks
extremdy weU, and works along at his magazine artides,

• which is neri thing to resting, and plays much on a battered
old piano we have hired from a livery stable man. We
o

210 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

have had several falls of snow, but just now the ground is
quite black. I took Louis out twice in a sleigh and went
quite a long way. Once when I was driving a pair, and
ttey pulled too hard, he took hold of one bridle rein to pull
back the liveliest horse, and he is the man who says a horse
has no sense. I was so savage that he fortunately dropped
it in time, or we should have had a fine ^ill

‘ Does that most beautiful creature, Lady Colin Campbell,
still remember me ? You spoke as though she did, and
I hope it is true, for I should like to have her remember me.
I so admired her. She seemed like a walk in the woods, and
fine, supple, wild beasts, and all those things that I love, and
a woman besides. Any of us can be a woman, and some
of us are very nice ones, but it is only given to a few to be
so much more of nature.

{In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, in Robert
Louts Stevenson’s handwriting, there appears the following
note ;]

‘ Passage at end marked out by R. L. S. F. says it was
too warm an expression of affection. Well — I will teU you
when we meet, but it will be cold porridge then.

‘ R. L. S.’

The Hanging Judge was a play written by Stevenson and
Ms wife in collaboration. It was not played and has not
been published.

Stevenson’s home at Saranac Lake is now a permanent
memorial of him, stocked with souvenirs. When I was
there in 1920 I sent to Lady Colvin some leaves from a tree
in the garden.

The next letters, said Colvin, when preparing his article
for the Empire Review in 1924, ends the period just before
Stevenson’s Vailima Letters began.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin. From Taiohae, Hiva-oa,
Marquesas M., August 18 [1888] : —

‘ Dear and never forgotten Custodian, — Oh, that you •
and a few — a very few friends were with us in these en-

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 211

chanted Isles to stay for ever and ever, and live and die with,
these ddightful miscalled savages. That they are cannibals
may be true, but that is only a freak of fashion like the taste
for decayed game, and not much more impleasant. Last
evening we had a savage queen to dine with us; I say
savage, because her son, who came with her, continually
referred to themselves as “ we savages.” The old lady has
presided at many a sacrificial feast, and ordered many a
poor witch to instant execution, and yet a more gracious
affection-compelling person I do not expect to see until I
again meet Lady Shelley, of whom she greatly reminded us.
Not a word of any tongue could she speak but her own, and
she was deaf besides, but we managed to pass more than
three hours very pleasantly in her chanmng society. She
wore a white dress made like a night-gown, of very fine
material, no underclothes, and a white china cr^pe shawl
heavily embroidered and frmged. Her hands and what
could be seen of her feet and legs were elaborately tattooed.
Even Mrs. Stevenson has grown to dishke the look of un-
tattooed hands. The queen, they say, is entirely covered
with the most beautiful tattooing that has ever been done
in the Islands. On Monday next, Stanilao, the heir appa-
rent, has invited us to a picnic. We are to go on horses,
natives having gone on ahead to prepare a meal. I am
rather curious as to what will take place, as the point of
interest, a balancing rock, has been tabooed for many years,
thou^ it stands in full sight of the village, and even
Stanilao has never been near it. He made a little speech
to us last evening thanking us formally for our sympathetic
treatment of “ his savages.”

' It was a sad business when we left Amaho. We had
eight particular friends there whom, I suppose, we shall
never see again. When we first arrived there they swarmed
over the vessel like flies, clothed in breech cloths and
tattooing only. For their farewell visit the beachcomber
had made them all white trousere and ^birts. Every man
was as dean as a new pin, and shining with cocoanut oil,

212 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

their finger nails, even, as carefully looked after as our own
We gave them what keepsakes we could find among our
things, and they presented us with tappa cloth beaten out
of the bark, oranges, cocoanuts prepared for drinking, some
rare shells, and to Lloyd one of them gave a carving done
on the bone of one of his ancestors. We had gingerbread
and a glass of rum all round, the whole*' party took a last
walk through the vessel, we shook hands, and parted. Hoka,
the beautiful dancer and the most graceful person I have
ever seen, dropped all his usual airs and graces, and sat
most of the time staring on the floor just as we do when we
are very unhappy and distressed ; sighing heavily, when he
had shaken hands he turned Ms head away, and never once
looked back. Typee, the cMef, on the contrary, stood up
in the midst of Ms men, waving Ms hand and making
gestures of farewell as long as he could see us. As the canoe
went off the captam saluted T57pee, when all the men un-
covered. Our canmbal friend, Koamoa, was, I am sorry
to say, too drunk to come aboard, and was left on the beach
hanging over the branch of a tree. It seems that a Corsican
had come over in a boat with a demijohn of rum, wMch was
more than the old cMef could stand. Our own Hoka, I
fear, believes m eatmg one’s enemies. He had had a
quarrel with the Corsican, who called him " cochon ” and
“ sauvage.” Hoka’s reply was “ you are more of a savage
than I am,” whereupon the man struck Mm a boxer’s blow
of wMch Hoka had no understanding. He sard he was
going to get a gun soon, and then he could go over to the
Island where the Corsican lives and dioot Mm, after wMch
he meant to cut off and eat one of his arms. In the next
Island we are going to visit, a man whom the whole popu-
lation hated was killed for vengeance. The question was
how should every man have a taste of Ms enemy without
the authorities fcding it out. TMs was solved by filling
matchboxes with the cooked flesh, and pasang them about.
I think the combination of the civilized matchbox and the
" long pig ” very interesting. Three months ago, a little

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 213

boy was called for at the school by a couple of people who
were dSco 37 ing him into a quiet spot for the pmrpose of
killing and eating him, but he discovered their evil inten-
tion in time to call for help. Three of the townspeople
have lately disappeared mysteriously : they are supposed
to have fallen victims to private vengeance. Lloyd has
had given him by a native woman an ornament to wear in
the war dance It is composed of locks of women’s hair
made into a sort of gigantic fringe. As many as ten women
were killed to make this ghastly ornament, their bodies
being cooked for the dancers’ feast.

‘ I am glad to tell you that quite suddenly Louis’ health
took a change for the better, and he is now almost as well
as he ever was in his life. It has been a mistake about the
cold places, warmth and hot sun is what he needs. Cer-
tainly we have found the nght place for him : and we both
love it. It is hard that we should ever have to go away.
Stanilao says that Dominique is still better, and if we con-
clude to come back here to stay that is the Island for us.
I think it is very nice of Stanilao to praise another Island
when he would so much like to have us here. Our next
point is Hiva-oa, for which we start in three days, taking
with us a most delightful person called FrSre Michel, who
builds churches not to be conceived of. I have made awful
drawings of one which will delight your soul, and fill you
with pleased laughter. My dearest love to you all, best
beloved friends. Louis is away walking in the hills, Lloyd
pla3dng on the fiddle. — Ever yours affectionately,

‘ F. V. DE G. Stevenson ’ ^

Mrs. R. L. S. to Sidney Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell, From
Honolulu, June 18, 1889 : —

‘ My dear Ones, — ^This is about the last chance for a
word of good-bye. The seachests are all corded up, Mr.
Strong is just finishmg a last tranqiarency for the magic
lantern, Louis is resting prior to the fatigue of bidding

1 In tlie Empire Eeview,

214 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

faxewell to his gracious majesty [Kalakaua], and we are
all in our travelling clothes, while Ah Foo scans theTiorizon
for what he can clap his eyes on. I wish you could see the
preparations Ah Foo and Lloyd have made m case of ship-
wreck. Mysterious parcels of garden seeds and carpenter’s
tools are stowed away m all sorts of inaccessible places. I
am sure they will both be disappointed if we are not cast
a^ore on a dissolute island, though I believe Ah Foo
would really prefer to trust to his own hands unaided by
the arts of civilization ; he can make fire by rubbing two
sticks together ; he can catch fish without hook or line,
and bnng birds down with a stone, to say nothmg of being
able to use a bit of stone for a knife or hatchet, in the
native fashion, or to walk up the stem of the tallest cocoa-
nut tree. In fact he is civilized just so much as we should
like to have him, and a savage just as far as it is useful.
He has fallen heir to rice lands, houses, and bullocks m
China, and his presence is urgently demanded by his rela-
tives. After much weeping and tribulation and sleepless
nights it was finally arranged that he would start on the
cruise with us, remain so long as he was necessary to our
comfort, and then branch off towards China.

‘ His is a sad case ; he has almost forgotten his own
tongue, and has entirely fallen out of sjnmpathy with his
own countrymen : he is much more like an emotional
pirate in manners and appearance than the suave, soft-
speakmg elegant gentleman that a man of property m
China should be. I am afraid his mother, who seems a
stiffly conventional person, will loathe the very sight of
him. The second son is holding the property pending Ah
Foo’s return, and in the meantime is ill-treating and cheat-
ing the family. It is that, and not the money that is taking
Ah Foo home. He proposes to go home and “ lick um my
bludder ” until he is brought to a proper sense of his duty,
then turn over everything to his mother and come back to
the white man’s country again. I hope he may come back
to us, but where may such will-o’-the wisps be by that time ?

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

itRS R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 215

With you, I trust. Had we known the truth about our
dear f^nd we should not now be here. We only learned
it too late, after we were committed to the cruise. That
is the only person in the world for whom I should be willing
to have Louis sacrifice himself in any way. I do not mean
to say that Louis is not continually offering himself up on
unworthy altars ;*but it is not with my consent. . . .

‘ Louis is coming round now to my view of his book of
travels, and I think that by the time we arrive in Sydney
he will have forgotten entirely that he ever held any other
and win look as coldly upon the scientific aspect as ever I
have done. It should be the most entrancing reading that
man ever engaged in.

‘ And if you could only see him t I do not think he is
much below his old good average of health. It seems in-
credible, and like a dream. If I can only take him back to
you like this ! But even if that is not to be, for a time he
has lived the life of a free man, and that is something
gained for him. It is a delight to me beyond words, as
it would be to you, to see him, bare-footed, and half clothed,
fl37ing about with his usual impetuosity, accompanied by
no fear of danger.

' I must stop now for other things. With dearest and
best love to you all, including our dear Henry James to
whom I hope fo write yet this evening.’ ^

Mrs R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwdl. From Sydney, April 12
[18903

‘ Best of Friends, — I fear it will be a disappointment
that we are not to be in England as soon as we expected.
Louis has taken his first bad cold, most probably that
dreadful influen 2 a. He is better, though very weak, and
the doctor said it would be suicide to start to England now,
or to stay on here just as the bad season is coming on. At
the critical moment I found a steamer of five hundred tons,
the Janet NicoU, which is about starting out on a cruise

^ In tjie Empire Emew,

2i6 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

in the South Seas of from two to four months’ duration. I
got our steamer tickets — already bought — advanc§d, and
took passage for our party for the South Seas. I had only
thirty-six hours to arrange everything in ; I am more tired
than words can say, but very thankful of getting a change
for Louis so comfortably. The vessel ^oes on a rather
mysterious cruise, and will give no information even to us,
of her business, nor of what Islands she will take us to with
the exception of Savage Island, the Tukelars, Penrh3m, and
Apemama. We are not even allowed on board until two
hours before leaving lest we let some information leak out
At the present moment the labour league is doing all it
can to prevent the Janet NicoU leavmg because of her
carrying Solomon Islanders as sailors. There will be no
other passengers besides ourselves with the exception of
a young man in process of becoming a beachcomber, who is
to be dropped in the Gilberts. We shall have nice large
cabins, and an awning is alwa}^ kept up over the house.
There are also two bathrooms. We have not been used to
such luxury. Louis has been staying in the country, and
will not come to town tiH the steamer is about to start. It
is odd that he had an attack of asthma the other night ; I
suppose only accidental.

‘ Of course this cruise will give additional interest to the
book. I am very glad you spoke of the historical and
scientific question. It has been rather heavy on my mind.
If I were the public I diouldn’t care a penny what Louis’
theories were as to the formation of the Islands, or their
scientific history, or where the people came from or^?nally
—only what Louis' own experiences were. And no one
has had such experiences. All the South Sea books speak,
by hearsay only, of the terrible Tembinok’, but we threw
ourselves into his arms, and went and lived with him for
months, and learned to love him almost as much as we
admired hhn. I have sent him an ensign that I designed,
and we shall carry with us his palace flag. What a surprise
it will be when we steam into Apemama and hoist his flag.

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : II 217

which we mean to do. Our photographs have all been
finishe(f up, and we have really lovely and wildly interest-
ing pictures. The camera goes with us this time. I feel
so ashamed to teU you that we are off again, for I know how
you were lookmg forward to meetmg Louis: but then I
know, too, that you love him with a generous and not a
selfish love.’ ^

In February 1890, Colvin tells us, the Stevensons, intend-
ing to return to England, for a speE or for permanence, had
sailed to Sydney. But there Stevenson was again taken ill
and reluctantly came to the conclusion that the South Seas
must be his only home.

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. SitweE [1889] : ‘ Louis is gone up to
the colonies to get the sea air there and back. He stiE keeps
very weE, but rather overworked his brain lately, so is
trying his remedy for everything, the sea. I was not weE
enough to stand the knocking about of the ship, so perforce
had to stay at home. I have been very lE since Louis went,
but of course he doesn’t know that. It was a Ettle alarming
to find my head gomg wrong in the middle of the night, and
no one on the premises but an unbecEe drunken German man,
and some fifty yards from the house, a young Samoan chief
about seventeen years of age.

' The chieflittg is aE lhat one could ask, and much more
than anyone could expect. I widi you could have seen the
wise youth the other day sitting in judgment to decide a
famEy quarrel. It came about in this way. My best work-
ing man who has long shown a burning desire to become what
lEoyd calls “ an old and attached ” threw himself on his
knees before me saying, “ I belong you now.” “ No you
don’t belong me,” said I ; “ you can’t unless I say so.”

“ That 's aE right,” returned SapeEi ; “ you no like me,
you ME him. You aE the same my mother now. You
savee I no belong this Island. I Fatuna man. Long time
ago, I leetle young boy, one American whaler man he stealee
me ; long time I go catch whale. By and bye Captain he
^ la the Empire Review,

2i8 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

go home, no want me any more ; he put me shore in Apia.
I no got father, I no got mother, I no got brother, i no got
mother, I no got brother, I no got sister, I no got friend
neither. My wife, she Samoa girl, she no good : she no
like me any more : she hke Samoa man. I no got nobody :
I aHee same one feEow.” The latter expression means “ I
am all alone.”

‘ Fortunately, for my heart was melting toward SapelU,
who had not, m his sorrows, forgotten to dye his hair rust
colour, and bedeck it with flowers, to say nothing of being
rubbed down from head to heel with scented oil (spots of
which he left on my floor), fortunately the young chief
(named Simele, possessing three titles, but called Henry for
short) came in at the critical moment. ” I must look into
this thing probably ” (properly) said he. The wife and her
family were sent for, and after they, and witnesses on both
sides had been examined, Henry came to the conclusion that
there had been a general family quarrel in which Sapelli was
more to blame than the others. It ended m everyone con-
fessing their misdeeds and a happy reconciliation all round.
So SapeUi is no more “ allee same one fellow,” and the
day of his attachment to Vailima is put off indefinitely.
Henry is civilized beyond oihng down, and yet, as I see him
just now, you would probably think he looked as much of a
savage as the rest. He is clad in a very small red and white
waist doth, a necklace of red berries is round his neck,
hanging low upon his brown chest, and on his head he wears
a wreath of fine fem leaves. He has cut his hair dose
everywhere except just over his forehead where a cresc^t
tuft is left. In this tuft he has stuck a large scarlet flower.
He stands on a stump directing his men with many gestures
and the loud imperative tones of his voice reach me here.
He speaks with less than usual of the rich thidk sweetness of
the Samoans, and is altogether of a tougher fibre than ordin-
ary. His ambition is to “ learn to do aH things in the manner
of high English chiefs.” The most deadly reproof we have
at our command is “ Henry, that is not Ali m England,”

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : 11 219

(AJi means literally princely.) We are building part of our
house, the expense and difficulty being so great at this time
of the year of gettmg up the building material, that we
thought it better to make only a beginning at present. . . .

‘ I suppose Lloyd has described my desperate engagements
with the man of genius over the South Sea book. Many
times I was almosf in despair. He had got Darwin on the
Coral Insect — no, Darwin was “ Coral Reefs ” : somebody
else on Melanesian languages, books on the origin of the
South Sea peoples, and all sorts of scientific pamphlets and
papers. He has always had a weakness for teaching and
preachmg, so here was his chance. Instead of writing about
his adventures in these wild islands, he would ventilate his
own theories on the vexed questions of race and language.
He wasted much precious time over grammars and diction-
aries, with no results, for he was not able to get an insight
hardly mto any native tongue. Then he must study the
coral business. That, I believe, would have ruined the
book but for my brutality. We had stopped when cruising
in the Janet Ntcoll at a most curious and interesting Island.
We were all going ashore together, but to my surprise Louis
refused to start with us, but said he would follow in a second
boat. Lloyd and I spent several hours wandering over the
Island having some odd adventures, and seeing many
curious things. ' But no Louis. At last we gave him up and
went down to the beach to return to the riiip. There was
that gentleman on the reef, half way between the ship and
shore, knee deep in water, the tropical sim beating on his
unprotected head, hammering away at the reef with a big
hatchet. His face was purple and his eyes injected with
blood, “ Louis, you will die ! ” I cned ; “ come away out of
the sun quickly.” “ No,” he answered. " I must get
specimens from this extraordinary piece of coral. I can’t
take the whole of it, for it ’s too heavy, but after two hours’
hard work I have got off bits showing the different sorts of
frankings. I still haven’t got all there is to be got, and the
work is so hard nobody will help me.” He then showed me

220 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

the fragments that he wished me to take to the ship, for
dinn er, fatigue, nothing should get him away ffom the
important discoveries he was making. I looked at his
specimens with contempt. “ Louis,” I cried, “ how ignor-
ant you are ! Why that is only the common brain coral.
Any schoolboy in San Francisco will give you specimens if
you really want them.” It was horrid bf me, but it was
true, and it had the effect of stopping off the coral interest.
I showed him on board the very Janet Nicoll a picture of
brain coral, there called “ the common brain coral.” Always,
please, fall upon me when his work goes wrong. He wiU
stubbornly hold to his own position, but is apt to give way
if he thkiks I am gettmg the blame. . . .

‘ He holds a most vexing theory at present. I plunged
into the work of the plantation with so much interest lhat
he says I have the true peasant nature, and lack the artistic
temperament ; thereupon my advice on artistic matters,
such as a book on the South Seas, must be received with
extreme caution. He says I do not take the broad view of
an artist, but hold the cheap opinions of the general public
that a book must be interesting. How I do long for a httle
wholesome monumental correction to be apphed to the
Scotch side of Louis’s artistic temperament. Let us have,
I pray you, all we can get, though it is so long on the way
as to be almost too late. Never had any man such enchant-
ing material for a book, and mudi of the best is to be left
out. “ Very well,” I say, “ if you will not, then I shall.
I ’H gather togelher all my letters, and publish them.” ’ ^

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell, referring to early days in
Samoa [? 1890] : —

' Dear Friend, — ^Because I make my sacrifice with
flowers on my head and point out the fine views on the way,
do not think that it k no sacrifice and only for my own
pleasure. The Samoan people are picturesque, but I do
not like them. I do not trust them. My time must be

^ In the Empire Review.

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 32 i

so arranged as not to dash with them. I shall be able to
get no servants but cannibal black boys, runaways and dis-
contents from the German plantations. A great part of
the housework I shall have to do myself, and most of the
cooking. The land must produce food enough for us all,
or we shall have nothing to eat. I must also manage that.
Oh it makes me tired to speak of it ; and I never feel weU,
then. I don’t want to complain. I am not complaining,
really, only telling you. There is one thing more. If a
letter diould come saying that you were dead it would kill
Louis on the spot. If ever there is any danger of that {and
I pray God not) tell us, for Loms might as well, then, go
to you and die with you as away from you. I am very
tired — do you understand what I mean ? When Louis
proposed to stay a few days in Noumea and come up on a
quick vessel some instinct moved me to agree, and it was
weE We were caught in a very terrible storm, our coal
gave out, we could hoist no sail and for two days and nights
we were lost on this dangerous coast drifting about per-
fectly helpless and almost swamped by the water that
washed over us sometimes half up the masts. The inability
to rest was so dreadful : one could neither he nor sit, but
only hang on to some part of the ship that would not give
way. Our captain was dangerously ill with gastric fever
and we did not know whether he was quite right in his
head when he sent word to us that he had made out a light,
on Sunday night, and thought he knew where we were.
Neither Lloyd nor I have got over the fatigue of it yet,
and Louis had a smooth beautiful passage all the way up.
It is because I am tired that I cannot write more clearly.
I am so confused, yet, in my head. I do hope and trust
you are all well. I cannot ask you to forgive me, but — I
do want Louis, and I do want everybody to think I like
going to Samoa — and in some ways I do like it ; I don’t
want people to think I am making a sacrifice for Louis.
I fact I can’t make a sacrifice for him ; the very fact that
I can do the thing in a way mak^ a pleasure to do it, and

222 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

it is no longer a sacrifice, though if I did it for another
person it would be. I can't write any more, though I know
there are a number of things I want to say. I send you my
love. I understand you better than you understand me.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Colvin : —

‘ Apie ., Jan [1890].

* Dear Custodian, — I hardly dare use that word with
the knowledge in my heart that we intend to remove our
bodily selves from out your custody, but as you know it
wiD be our vile bodies only ; spiritually we are yours and
always shall be. Neither time nor space can change us in
that. You told me when we left England that if we found
a place where Louis was really well, to stay there It
really seems that anywhere in the South Seas will do. Ever
since we have been here we have been on the outlook for
a spot that combmes the most advantages In some ways
I preferred the Marquesas, the chmate being perfect, and
the natives people that I admired and loved. The only
suitable place on the Sandwich Islands is at the foot of
a volcano where we should have to hve upon black lava,
and trust to rain for water. Besides I could not bear the
white population. AH things considered, Samoa took our
fancy the most : there are three opportunities each month
to communicate with England by telegraph from Auckland,
Auckland being from seven to eight days’ steamer distance
from us. You would hardly believe your own eyes if you
could but see Louis in his present state of almost rude
health, no cough, no hemorrhage, no fever, no night sweats.
He rides and walks as much as he hkes without over-
fatigue, and in fact lives the life of a man who is well. I
tremble when I think of our return to England. I doubt
if he will dare stay there for long.

‘ Wdl, just as we had made up our min ds that Samoa
was our <h.oice we discovered by accident the very piece
of land that seaned to have been made to order for us. It
is already difficult to buy land here, and the difficulties

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 223

will inprease by the action of the new law forbidding natives
to sell tbeir lands. This tract consists of between three
and four hundred acres, part of it table land of the richest
deep virgin soil : more than enough for a large plantation.
The rest is wild and picturesque : great cMs, deep ravines,
waterfalls, one some two hundred feet deep, and every-
where gigantic trees of different species. The whole lying
some four hundred feet more or less above the sea level,
and commandmg magnificent views of the harbour, the
sea outside, and the surrounding country. We shall be
two miles and a quarter from the town, not too near, nor
yet too far. For this we pay ten Chih dollars an acre, I
cannot count it up, but seven Chili dollars go to the Enghsh
pound. With the land goes a herd of cattle. One of our
friends has just been in to speak about pur chasing the
cattle, or at least entenng into some sort of arrangement
concemmg them. He says there are between fifty and
sixty head, and they are worth between forty and fifty
dollars apiece. The man who owned the property offered
Louis seventy-five dollars (dollars are always “ Chili ”)
for his choice amongst the cows. At any rate here is a
good bit towards paying for the land. A surveyor is now
at work searching the boundaries, a lawyer who is most
anxious to have us return, remaining on the spot to see
that all is done correctly. Every few days the lawyer (a
Mr. Carruthers) comes down and tells us of some new and
delightful discovery he has made. He says, thou^ he
has lived here for a great many years he has never seen
sudi grand and beautiful scenery, nor better or more avail-
able land. Think of having three beautiful rivers of one’s
own, and a waterfall shaded by gnarled orange trees within
five minutes’ walk of one’s door, — not that we have a door
as yet, but we have chosen the site for our house. This
waterfall is not the two hundred feet one, but a more
modest and restful little fellow with a large swimming pool
at his feet.

' As I am writing throng continual interruptions Louis

224 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

win look over my letter and correct any mistakes I have
made as to facts. My Chinaman has learned how, to take
photographs and in a few days will go out to our land and
take photographs to send you. He is calling me now to
pose for him, saying that the “ camphor ” is ready. He
makes a very economical use of Enghsh, one sound serving
for many purposes. He has learned camphor wood trunk,
so camphor is naturally used for camera. “ Cocolet ”
means either cocoanut, chocolate, or cockroach. Some-
times a little confusion arises, but we guess his meaning
from the context.

‘ Here is another interruption ; a madman has come in,
and as I cannot make Louis understand that he mustn’t
engage him in conversation I fear he will never leave. It
is very difficult to write under disadvantages : and good
heavens — Louis is arguing with him !

‘ The hardships of our last voyage were very great,
and almost too much for me. In fact Louis was the only
one who came out of it with any degree of health and
strength. The schooner was loaded with coprah (shelled
cocoanut) which fermented and filled the vessel with an
acrid noisome steam. The floor of our cabin was so hot
that I could hardly stand upon it with bare feet, and to
sleep in it was impossible. In all, our accommodations
consisted of two rooms some eight feet square, one had a
counter across it, and the other was the room m which we
dined— in relays. The captain, it is true, had a trig cabin
opening into the dining-room, but it could hold but one
sleeper. All the rest of us, then, had to dispose of ourselves
as best we could m the rest of this limited space. In the
trade room with the counter, Lloyd, Louis and Joe were
supposed to sleep . Ah Foo on the counter, and I on the
floor bdow Ah Foo in a little passage way. All the trunks
and luggage, and most of the trade stuffs, were piled upon
the floor behind the coimter, and in one comer were a
couple of shut bunks. I forgot that the steward, Murray,
slept also in the trade room. I used to go to bed (dressed)

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 225

witE an open umbrella ; when the rain came through the
skylight *1 held the umbrella over my head, and when it
blew in at the open door upon my feet I held the umbrella
with my monkey toes : but when the sea washed in I had
to dose the door and then we all began to suffocate. In the
dining-room slept Mr. Rick the American consul for Bulari-
tion, Mr. Paul something I have forgotten, and either the
mate or the captain. ... It was odd that our mate was
in a quiver of fear all the time, and yet slept through all his
night watches. I am bound to say, however, that he
wakened quickly. The night we lost our foretopmast he
was lying in the captain’s berth asleep. At the first crash
of the squall he leaped out of bed, and crying out “ This is
no time for fooling ” thrust the captam on one side and
bormded on deck. I was very glad that I had my China
boy with me that night : hearing great confusion on deck
I woke up Ah Foo saying, “ I think him got trouble on deck ;
more better you go and help.” Our ship was maimed, if
manned you can call it, by bo}^, and when Ah Foo got
forward he found them dustered together domg nothing.
He asked what orders they had ] “ then why don't you do
what captain tell yuu ? ” When they answered that they
did not know how, “ then,” said Ah Foo, “ I lose my head.
I say ‘ an right, we go to bottom now.’ ” Fortunatdy his
head was soon recovered, for he put a rope in a hand, and
telling them to pull way on that, he climbed on top of the
galley and did exactly the right thing for which the captain
afterwards presented Mm with a sovereign.

‘ Ah Foo is coming back to us after he arranges his affairs
in China. He says he wMxes to attach himself to us for
life, wMch alarms us a good deal, for he has already diown
symptoms of becoming the old attached servant. At Ape-
mama he was very iU once. Instead of telling us he went
on like a martyr, an extremely sullen martyr, and when
Louis finally spoke diarply to him he became rigid with
d%nity, replying, “Yes, Mr. Stevenson, I heard you. I
very sick : more better you get a knife and come kill me
p

226 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

now. I no can work,” after which he retired to the kitchen
and wept miserably. The moment a servant begins
martyrdom is the moment, I fear, to part. Very soon the
martyr is an absolute monarch, and the family are his
slaves. Ah Foo having learned English from people who
issued orders knows nothing about making a request : the
effect on strangers must be very extraordinary when he
comes into the room where Louis is and abruptly orders
him out. The stretch of pohteness is ” more better you go
now.” To this manner please add the appearance of an
tmusually stalwart pirate.

‘ I wish you could have seen the countenance of the
captain of the schooner when Ah Foo issued orders to him ;
between surprise, anger and bewilderment he was abso-
lutdy dumb, and to the last day on board he was still im-
prepared and at Ah Foo’s mercy. At this moment Ah
Foo is away developing a photograph of Louis’ private
secretary, his first attempt at photography alone. If we
can get a print m time I will enclose one. The secretary
who usually comes dad m an undershirt and a strip of
curtain stufi is gorgeous in the photograph with all sorts
of finery. The undershirt is cast aside, leaves are bound
round Ms loins, beads and parti-coloured leaves are twisted
through Ms hair, and round his neck he has a borrowed
chief’s necklace of large wMte teeth, to say nothing of a
bead bracelet borrowed from a lady. He looks much better
in these borrowed plumes than when dressed as the seore-
tary. He is a full blooded native, and the stupidest I
know. We have another acquaintance — I do not know
whether to call h i m a friend or not, an exceedingly clever
fellow named Sitione. Sitione is a redoubtable warrior,
and is covered with scars and wounds, one very bad one
in the dioulder still not out of the dangerous state. I
would betray Sitione’s confidence to no one but you. When
he thought, and we thought we were about to leave Samoa
for ever, while talking about the likehhood of more trouble
with the Germans, he told me that at the very beginning

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 227

the Samoans meant to fall upon the whites and massacre
aJJ, friends and foes alike, fire the town, and take to the
bush where they would become wild people again. A few
days ago Louis was speaking to him about our projected
house and said that he meant to make it very strong in
case of another war. Sitione was very much embarrassed
and hardly knew* where to look. I am trying to make a
little portrait of him (he is a handsome feUow) but the
difSculties are very great. In the first place the paints
become liquid in the heat, and run like water. Then I
have only two old brudies, little camel hair brushes in the
last stage of moulting. I mean to try to learn something
about water colours, but fear the difficulties may be in-
surmountable. I had a sort of hurdy gurdy hand organ which
Sitione coveted and wished to buy from me. He first came
with a present of a kava bowl that I know cost him fifteen
dollars ; that was followed by a spear that cost five ; and
still the music box remained under Ah Foo’s bed. Appar-
ently becoming alarmed lest he lose that and his costly
presents too, he began to haunt the premises with little
baskets. He was rapidly falling away and growing haggard
with anxiety, so yesterday the music box was handed over
to bim ; and now I expect to see him no more, and my poor
little portrait must remain as it is. Among other interesting
ofierings he brought a photograph of himself which he was
careful to inform me cost a dollar. Unfortunately it does
not look in the least like him, but Ms costume of leaves
and flowers and Ms sister’s silver necklace and locket is
gorgeous in the extreme.

‘ Since the departure of the madman we have had two
more visitors; the resident missionary of the London
Missionary Society, and a Catholic priest. In Honolulu there
was a missionary whom we liked very much, and here is
another, almost Ms twin, a very clever and interesting man
— and— the odd thing is they look like you, have much of
your manners and speak with your voice. This man is
Englidi, named Clarke, the other— the superior one, an

228 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

American named Damon. Perhaps you have missed your
true speaf and ^ould by rights be building coral dburches
in cannibal Islands. Speaking of cannibalism reminds me
of a gruesome thing told me by a native in the budi where
I stayed for a couple of weeks. During the war whenever
a German or a Tamesese man was killed his head was cut
off and carried off as a trophy. If the^an wasn’t dead
but only wounded, they killed him. The head, when cut
off, was taken up by the teeth of the conqueror, and brought
in as a dog fetches a bone.

' I have belied my Sitione, for this moment he sends in
a lot of fredi fish, every colour of the rainbow. It must
have been a savage sight when Sitione had a head in his
teeth. We were alarmed the other day at the condition of
his wound, and rather advised him to go to the German
doctor who is an excellent surgeon. He explained that he
was waiting for our English man-of-war to come in, intend-
ing to ask the ship’s surgeon to perform the operation. He
had the greatest confidence in the German’s skill, but
feared his vengeance. As Sitione said, when he was un-
conscious with chloroform, and the doctor stood over him
knife in hand it was but natural that he should remember
some of the incidents of the war, and very possible that
the knife might be used at least roughly. Louis went
rotmd to the chemist who dresses Sitione’s' shoulder, and
he assured them both that it was perfectly safe to wait yet
longer. “ How did you get that scar on your temple,
Sitione ? ” I asked. “ I was drunk, and fight ; get cut
with spear.” “ And those scars on your side ? ” ” Some
man shoot me there.” “ And these ? ” " Oh that some
kind of sickness.” The kava bowl is a really beautiful
thing, carved with six legs, from a solid piece of wood, and
coated over the inade with the kava — stain is hardly the
word. I have drunk kava, but noticed no effect whatever,
though I took at least a teacup ML If you know the taste
of burgundy pitch that is its flavour exactly.

* More visitors : a young lady of ten or thereabouts (ten

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: II 229

here is equal to fourteen in England) at each door, singing,
and twisting their pretty little hands about. In the bush
I used to have a little party every evening : three lovely
httle seraphs, and one grown girl of extraordinary beauty.
They sat in a row on the floor, a fine Kttle naked boy within
reach in case they became embarrassed, when he received
a sounding dap.* As long as I let them stay they sang
and danced like little angels. A handkerchief round the
loins, and wreaths, was the evemng dress, except for the
young lady, who generally came in a cotton chemise. Once
or twice she made a morning call in a piece of gunny sack,
but never without a handkerchief tied roimd her neck by
the two side comers so that the square end covered her
breast. I am sorry to say that this lovely creature, Zose-
phina by name, caused me considerable annoyance. Louis
and Lloyd went off with a couple of missionaries to visit a
school at least four hours’ sail from Apia. At the same
time Miss Zosephhia disappeared, whereupon her mother
demanded compensation from me, dedaring that Lloyd
had levanted with her. One morning almost before break
of day a native policeman appeared at the kitchen door
and demanded Ah Foo’s body on a charge of conspiracy
and abduction. Ah Foo refused to move until I had my
breakfast whsssx he went down to Apia and appeared before
the native magistrate. The verdict was two dollars fine
for Zosephina’s mother, and Ah Foo was advised to kick
any of the family who diowed themselves. Zosephina
returned in a short tune to the bosom of her family, looking
ha^;ard and battered, and as though die had drunk for a
week, but resolutely refusing to give any account of her
absence. I am assured that I diall like the natives very
much when I really know them : perhaps I may, but I
have my doubts. They are a veiy diSerent people from
the Marquesans, the Tahitians, or even the Low Manders,
all of whom I Kked, and many of whom I loved.

‘ Would you could see the flag I designed (made on board
an American man of war) for our admirable Idug Tembinok’.

230 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

It has three crosswise stripes, orange, red and green : (he
is king of 3 Islands) across these is an immense black shark
(the royal family claim to be descended from a shark)
with open mouth, white teeth, and a white eye with a
black pupil. I mean to make him also a palace flag, and
a coat of arms with the motto “ I bite triply.” Of aU the
king s I have met, and funny as it sounds I have met a
great many, he is the most kingly. . . .

' You must not think that life on board the Equator was
unmitigated misery ; on the contrary there were many
mitigations. We had two birthday celebrations, one
Louis’, for which we killed our pig, a present from a native
missionary in Bartatui, drank champagne, toasting all
our friend, and sang songs prepared for the occasions.
Then we fidied for sharks, a wildly exciting sport ; I felt
no qualms about killing the diark ; I even caught one
myself, and have his teeth as a trophy. There were times
when large sharks were hanging all round the vessel. One
day a big fellow that we thought was dead suddenly leaped
upon the deck knocking Ah Foo down, and was very near
going down the companion way. Every few days Ah Foo
speared one or more albacores, or dolphins or porpoise
amidst the wildest enthusiaism. Even the diance of diip-
wreck was a stirring thing ; the captain declared that I
was bitterly disappointed that it didn’t come off, and I
had to unmake my parcels of shawls and medicines. The
night we were prepared to take to the boats I held ihe
ship’s cat in my arms aU night lest she might be forgotten in
the confusion. We played cards in the evening and gambled
for cowrie shdls, and I became quite an expert at a game
with draughts. The captain and Lloyd sang, and Lloyd
played upon his little Hawaiian guitar accompanied by
Joe on a real guitar. Louis’ pipe lost its voice which was
a misfortune. Sometimes the consul and Mr. Seward sang,
and often we could get much amusement from the singing
of 'the crew. The captain was an excellent story teller,
and the greatest fun when he did not mean to be; so

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : II 231

altogether, in spite of bad weather, cockroaches the size
of toads, which gnawed our nails and noses, and pulled our
eyeladies while we slept, and the ravages of another insect
which diaJl be namdess (he necessitates the use of a fine
toothed comb) we passed the time more agreeably than
you would think. Still there were hardships that we
could not have bame a great while longer.’

Mrs. R. L. S. to Mrs. Sitwell. From Samoa [? 1892] :
' Louis’ cousin, Graham Balfour, is here still, to our great
pleasure, for we like him extremely. He fits into the family
as naturally as though he had been bom there, and it will
be a wrench when he goes. He says he will come back,
but I know what will happen ; he will marry somebody,
and we ’ll hate his wife, and there ’U be the end of it ; for
of course if we hate his wife he must hate us. When he
gets back to London you must all see him. He is the
most reticent person in the world, so please make him talk
to you ; you can do that if anybody can. I wonder what
the paragraph in aH the papers means about Louis bemg
made consul? I wish it might be true, and so do most
people.’

CHAPTER XVI

COLVIN AS STEVENSON’S LONDON REPRESENTATIVE

1887-1894

After Tilbuiy, although Colvin was to see Stevenson no
more, his association with him may be said in a way to
have become closer ; because it was upon Colvin that the
onus of findmg publishers and editors for the books and
articles coming from the Pacific was to rest. Never can
an unofficial and unpaid agent have shown more devotion
or zeal. Colvin, I am convinced, was, for himself, a poor
bargainer : he had no financial gemus or even talent ; but
when it was a case of making money for his R. L. S. he
became almost Semitic.

The one whose real duty it was to carry on such nego-
tiations was Charles Baxter,^ who was Stevenson’s accredited
man of affairs ; but Baxter was a cheerful delegator.
Colvin, however, although thus given a free hand, felt it
incumbent upon him to let Baxter know what was happen-
ing, and in a series of letters lasting from 1887 until 1894
he reported progress. After Baxter’s death these came back
into Colvin’s possession, and it is through reading them
that I have realized to the full how dihgent was this self-
sacrificing London representative of the exile author.
Most of them are too technical and commercial to be worth
quotation ; they are largely taken up with balancing the
merits and demerits, cautiousness or gambling tendencies,
of various London and New York publidiers. One or two,
however, must be mentioned. Here, for example, is Colvin’s
report on the first night of Stevenson and Henley^s high
comedy, so agreeable to read in the armchair, Beau Austin,

STEVENSON'S LONDON REPRESENTATIVE 233

which Beerbohm Tree produced at the Ha37market Theatre
on November 3, 1890 : —

' BnUsh Museum, London, W C,, Nov, 4, 1890.

‘ My dear Baxter, — Here in as few words as possible
are my impressions of the Beau. Please hand them to
Henley if he cares to know them. — packed and picked
audience of people, very favourable to the authors, and
miles above the average intelligence of the British public :
with this audience, the piece was a fair succis d’eslime ;
not more. During the first three acts it promised to become
more : people were thoroughly interested and attentive,
even moved and pleased, though there was very little
applause : but the fourth act was quite ineffective. This
was to my mind mainly due to bad stage management.
The Pantiles were far too much in the country : there was
no attempt at a crowd, or at getting any effect out of their
emotions as onlookers, on which of course the whole moral
force of the situation depends : not more than 8 or lo
people on the stage all told (and a ridiculous dummy Duke
of York), staring like stuck pigs. — ^Also Tree, thou^ he
was weE got up and not vulgar, and did the courtly cere-
monious part of the buaness well enough, had no ease, no
passion, no gallantry even : but played with immense study
in a monotonous solenm key : the broken spirit and con-
trite heart kind of business, wiffiout a break, from the
moment his deceased Mend the Colonel is mentioned. One
amply sate longing for Delaunay. — ^Mrs. Tree very fair in
the quiet parts : quite screarmly feeble and commonplace
in the more powerful. Young Terry acted much the best.
The greatest disappointment was Brookfield, whose Men-
tdlth (make-up and all) was a kind of heavy Sam Weller. —
In a word, the actors all except one, though evidently
trying hard to do their best, were totally ineffident : and
the stage management of the fourth act was ruinous. —
Neverthdess, with that audience, the play, until the fourth
act, gave a great deal of enjoyment, and was followed with

234 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

keen interest : if hardly with enthusiasm. My impres-
sion is that with the same audience and good actors it
would be a very great success : but that with an average
audience and those actors it can be no success at aU. In
haste, — Yours ever, Sidney Colvin ’

Stevenson thought very little of Deacon Broiie, but,
enthusiastic by Henley, had settled down, in his early
days at Bournemouth in 1884-5, to more dramatic work
with the same collaborator. There is a list in his hand-
writing of no fewer than sixteen plays — ^historical plays,
comedies and melodramas — of which only two, after Deacon
Broiie, came to fruition : Beau Austin and Admiral Guinea.
At either Irving’s or Beerbohm Tree’s suggestion they wrote
also Macaire, although it was never produced.

I omit all the letters referring merely to business details
or to news from Samoa, and come to the last of the series,
which deal, in the spring of 1894, with the plans for the
limited de luxe edition of Stevenson’s writings known as
the Edinburgh, which was to bring in enough money to
allay for ever the anxiety as to wajs and means that seems
to have continually brooded over the Samoan household.
The following letter is a good specimen of Colvin’s practical
clear-headedness : —

' April 20/94, Brihsh Museum

‘My dear Baxter, — ^Enclosures duly posted to the
respective publishers this morning. The thing seems to
have made a quite first-rate beginning ; and if L. is ;f4ooo
or £5000 the richer by this time two years, you will indeed
have served him well. — I had sent off a list of a preliminary
notice to the Afhenceum, but wrote off at once to stop it
on receipt of your telegram : am glad I thought of consulting
you on the point. —

‘As to embellishments, — ^mitials & tail-pieces may be
dropped without a pang : even about frontispieces I am
not so keen, if the edition promises to go as well without
them : but I think at the same time it would be a help (and

STEVENSON’S LONDON REPRESENTATIVE 235

perhaps enable you to ask a higher price — or is the question
of price settled ?) if we could get a really good emblematic
& decorative frontispiece to each volume. — There are
several young designers who might turn out work of the
kind I have in mind : notably Anning Bell : but must it,
in accordance with your plan & prospectus, necessarily be
a Scotchman ? Awning Bell may be that for aught I
know : if not, I could enquire for one who is among the
J dozen men who are doing good work in black & white of
the kind I want. —

‘ Please answer as to the question of nationality, also
whether you would authorize me to have a trial design
made for one of the books — to be paid for whether used or
not — ^but only to be used, and the rest gone on with, if we
are both fully agreed as to its fitness ? Don’t forget also
to answer about Catnona map. — Yours, S. C.’

Six days later Colvin wrote : ‘ Nationality apart, this is
the man to whom on artistic grounds I diould give first
tnal.

‘ What do you say ?

The following letter from the ‘ man ’ himself was
enclosed : —

‘ 98 Warner Rd., Camberwell, Aprtl 26, ’94.

' Dear Mr. Colvin, — Unfortunately I cannot claim any
Scottish blood to my knowledge, but my knowledge on the
subject is dight and is soon lost in the mystery which wraps
the dan of Cockaigne ; the name, of course, is Scotch or at
any rate north country.

‘ Your project seems a charming one and I diould very
much like to have a share in it. If your colleagues wUl pass
me as “ presumably Scottidi,” and I am b ^inni ng to feel
sure that I am — I am sure you will give me early informa-
tion as to the details of size and diape, etc. of the work you
want from me, as I should like plenty of time to conader
it, before I make the first drawing — ^a fortnight or three
weeks say; — perhaps it would be better if I could meet

236 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

you so that we might discuss it. — Believe me — Very
sincerely yours, Robert Anning*Bell.

‘ P.S. — I now feel quite convinced that I am of Scottish
origin — ! ’

' Bnhsh Museum^ London, W.C., Oct 13, 1894.

‘ My dear Baxter, — I Ve a letter frsm R. L, S. with a
message for you : doubtless by way of supplement to what
he has written you himself. — “ I forgot to teH Baxter that
the dummy had turned up and is a fine personable looking
volume and very good reading. Please commumcate this
to him.” —

‘ He also says the following about his work : as to which
I want to consult you. “ I have been trying hard to get
along with St. Ives. — I diould now lay it aside for a year
& I daresay I should make something of it after alL Instead
of that I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself,
& spoil the book, if there was ever anything to spoil : which
I am far from saying. Let nobody pitch into me about
St. Ives, or the Lord have mercy on his soul. I ’m as sick
of the damned thing as ever you can be ; it ’s a rudderless
hulk, it 's a pagoda, & you can just feel — or I can feel—
that it might have been a pleasant story, if it had only been
blessed at baptism.”

‘ Now this seems to me very serious. He ’s not likely
to be wrong. — It ’s a thousand pities he couldn’t be told
to lay it aside comfortably for the present : all his best
work has been done with these gaps. — ^And the present
is rather a tummg-point in his career. A failure — ^which
should be not a collaboration, & on his old adventure lines
— ^would do him permanent harm ; and lower his prices
as wen as his reputation for good. — In the long run it would
doubtless be much best, for his fortune as well as his fame,
if this thmg could be kept till he can get into the vein agam.
— ^Now, how does the £ s. d. question really stand? I
know he makes you anxious by overdrawing ; but with
this sum of £3000 actually certain by means of the Ed. ed..

STEVENSON'S LONDON REPRESENTATIVE 237

and with his mother’s income of £1200 a year or whatever
it is, is there any real cause for anxiety ? — ^When will the
Ed. ed. money be beginnmg to roll in ? — and could not a
publisher or someone be got to advance whatever is neces-
sary to meet his wants, on such absolutely certain security
as that is ?

‘ Do please tum*the thing over most carefully in your
mind. PublMier’s disappointments in the present should
count as nothing agamst the ulterior harm of bringing out
work that would make people say he was played out.
The Ebb-Tide, ugly as it may be, can’t make them say
that . —

' You of course, and you only, know how his business
affairs stand, but from my point of view (and that is not
the hterary only but the mercantile one too) it would pay
much better to be able to wire him, “ Let St. Ives slide for
the present ” — even rf it had to be done at the cost of mort-
gaging part of his reversion — than that he diould have to
wring it out of himself with the distress he is evidently
now suffering, — and at the cost of its quality.’

Two months later Stevenson was dead.

The ‘ Edinburgh ’ edition, one of the finest complete sets
of his work that any author ever had, consisted of twenty-
eight volumes, and steadily grew to be more and more
desired by collectors It was not so much illustrated as
decorated, and Mr, Aiming Bell was among the contributors.

CHAPTER XVII

STEVENSON’S DEATH; THE VAILIMA LETTERS,

WEIR OF HERMISTON, AND THE CORRESPONDENCE

1894-1899

Robert Louis Stevenson died suddenly, in Samoa, on
October 3, 1894, aged forty-four. Although his life may
be said to have hung always by a thread, the news of his
death came as a shock, not less to his friends than to
strangers. If it is no exaggeration to say that thousands
upon thousands of English-speaking people had the sense
of a personal bereavement, it may be imagined how lost
were such intimates as Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell.

Among the letters I find one from Burne-Jones to Mrs.
Sitwell : ‘ I fear it is too true that news from Samoa —
& I am quite miserable to-day — I have sent a wretched
little note to Sidney — & I send a howl to you — about your
note. I win answer it — day or two — this news has sickened
me — for I wanted him to live for ever.’

Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin wrote : —

' Dec. 18.

‘ My dear Mr. Colvin, — You will— I am sure — ^forgive
me for troubling you — even today — ^with a few hues. It
seems that we must bdieve this terrible news — ^that it is
really true — & in the midst of my own sorrow my thoughts
turn constantly to you. To Louis & to you I owe so much
— the memorial to my husband— the work of Ms faithful
friendship & of yours— has been my great comfort m all
these years — & thus I must always think of Louis and of
you together.

STEVENSON’S DEATH

239

‘ Then I have loved Louis so weE for 26 years, that I
seem to»guess at your loss through my own — & more than
that — I have heard him speak of you many, many times
— & so I know something of the other side of that great
loss — ^the loss of being loved — as well as of loving.

' Please let me offer you the S3mipathy of a very grateful
— & of oh ! a ver3fcsad heart.

‘ Do not write — if you will pardon my writing, it is all I
want. — Yours most smcerely, Anne Jenkin ’

From S. R. Lysaght, the Irish poet ; —

' Walton Park Hotel, Clevedon, Somerset, Jan. 7, 1895.

‘ My dear Mr. Colvin, — So great was his power of
winning love that though I knew him for less than a week
I could have* borne the loss of many a more intimate friend
with less sorrow than Stevenson’s. Except for a short
note from San Francisco I did not write since I left Samoa,
and it is now a weight on my mmd that I might have
appeared careless or neglectful. The truth was that I
thought there was no hurry and was always waiting for
some supreme happy mood before I wrote to him — I began
once or twice and stopped, thinking “No — no ordinary
humour will do for this letter ’’ ; and now my only consola-
tion is that he was a man of such discenunent and gener-
osity as to know that I loved him truly and not to mterpret
my silence for indiSerence. Coupled with the sorrow of
sudh friends as yourself my own is almost an impertmence,
and yet, though I was with him for less than a week, I
know that I may be numbered among those who truly
loved him and who truly sorrow.

‘ Of you he spoke to me with a glow — a joy in remem-
brance, an exhilaration m the thought of my telling you
of his surroundings, a deep ftiend^p touching to me at
the time and teafold so now.

‘ I suppose I am almost the last Engli^ friend who saw
him — ^and when I saw him last Easter, there was no sugges-
tion of failure of strength — ^After all I had heard of his

240 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

delicacy I was astonidied at his vigour — He was up at 5
and at work soon after, and at eleven o’clock at tiight he
was dancing on the floor of the big room while I played
Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety piano. He would
talk to me for hours of home and old friends, but with
a wonderful cheerfulness — knowing himself banished from
them for life and yet brought close to" them by love. I
confidently counted on his living — ^he took a keen interest
m my own poor work and it was one of my ambitions to
send him a book some day which would better deserve his
attention. But my own sorrow and regret I feel can be
nothing in comparison with those who, like yourself, have
been knitted to him by years of love. But as I have lost
my diance of writing to him, it is some relief to write to
you, his dearest friend, and say that I also am'among those
who mourn, — Believe me, dear Mr. Colvin, — ^Very sincerely
yours, Sidney Royse Lysaght.’

And here is a letter from Stevenson’s mother, who
was sta3dng at Vaflima when the fatal hemorrhage
occurred ; —

‘ Vaihma , Apia , Samoa , Feb . 4, 1895.

‘ My dear Mr. Colvin, — I thank you with all my heart
for your most kind & affectionate letter. We aU knew how
you would mourn with us as well as for us in our grievous
& irreparable loss. It is just two months today since that
sad procession up Vaea mountain took place & the blank
seems as fresh as ever & as impossible to realise. My own
life is plucked up by the roots a second time & I feel as if
I could never take any further interest in anything except
in the dear and precious memory. It is soothing to find
how universally my beloved child was appreciated & how
thoroughly his loving nature was understood & yet it
accentuates our loss. I know that I have much to be
thankful for but Oh I I long for my boy. I can’t be thank-
ful enough that I returned when I did & brought him all
that he wanted from the old home & had the privilege of

STEVENSON’S DEATH 34I

spending the last six months in his loved society. They
were vesy happy months, he was much pleased with his
house & enjoyed the society of the officers of the Curagao
who were always coming & going & he was just like a boy
among them. He used to say that the Captain treated
him as if he were “ a slightly superior middy.” When I
arrived I thought he was working too much & I tried hard
to persuade him to take a complete rest for a year, quoting
A. K. H. B. about the risks of 45 — ^but he would not listen
to me & said that he must work. I am afraid he did not
quite understand the telegram, he rather feared that the
bargain about St. Ives was off altogether & that made him
plunge into Hcrmiston but he seemed at the last to be
working easily & with keen enjo37ment. We all did our
best to spare' him but God willed it otherwise & we must
submit & try to be resigned.

‘ Dr. Funk told me that death was caused by apoplexy
followed by paralysis of the lungs. Fanny thought that he
had said paralysis of the brain which led to some confusion
in the first reports.

‘ Mr. Baxter arrived on 31st Jany. What a different visit
it is from what we had all anticipated ! He brought us
our cojaes of the 2 first vols. of the Edinr. Edition with
which we are all much pleased. It did seem hard that my
dear Lou riiould not even see it & that he should lose Mr.
Baxter’s visit which he had looked forward to with so
much pleasure. What a life of disappointments he had
from his earliest years & how nobly he bore them ! Now
he is reaping his reward. Many thanks for promising to
send all the extracts from the papers about him. I have
b^un an In Memoriam volume — ^it is my 7th volume of
Reviews.

' Feby 24th. tnail time draws near & I must finish my
letters. I have now made up my mind to return home. I
think my aster needs me more than anybody else so I hope
to leave Samoa a month hence & to sail from Sydney by
the Orient steamer Orizaba. I riiall be in London for a few
Q

242 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

days with Mr. & Mrs. Black, 7 Petersham Terrace & I hope
I shah get a sight of you if you are in town. I an® sorry to
teU you that Lloyd has at last taken this dengue fever that
has been prevalent in Samoa for about 4 months. We
hoped that we were to escape but last Wednesday Loia was
suddenly struck down & he is in a very weak state. We
feel anxious about him as he reahy never has been quite
himself since our great trouble which told very heavily on
him poor boy. I shah leave a line to give you the latest
news.

‘ Feby 26th mah day. I am very glad to teh you that
Lloyd seems decidedly better, he asked for an egg for break-
fast today, almost the first thing that he has eaten. Fanny
& Behe are both pretty weh worn out with nursing him so
they may not be able to write to you but* we ah unite
in kindest regards & best thanks for much appreciated
sympathy, — I am ever yours truly & affectely

‘ M. 1 . Stevenson ’

Colvin’s first task in 1895 was to prepare for pubUcation
the Vailirm Letters, which had been exclusively addressed
to hun. In the current editions of the Correspondence
they are sorted into their natural places, but for some years
they stood alone, and indeed they should perhaps stih
stand alone, for they are often rather more like epistolary
essays than the familiar pen gossip of the less self-conscious
correspondence which was to be pubhshed later.

Colvin, who cahs them ‘journal-letters,’ thus, in his
editorial preface, explains the situation : ‘ They occupy a
place quite apart in his correspondence, and in any general
sdection from his letters would fill a qrxite disproportionate
space. Begun without a thought of publicity, and simply to
maiutain our intimacy undiminidied, so far as might be, by
separation, they assumed m the course of two or three years
a bulk so considerable, an<l contained so much of the matter
of his daily life and thoughts, that it by and by occurred to
him, that “ scane kind of a book ” mi^t be extracted out

STEVENSON’S DEATH 243

of them after his death. It is this passage which has given
me my warrant for their publication, and at the same time
has imposed on me no very easy editorial task.’

Colvin also sa3rs : ‘ It belonged to the richness of hi s
nature to repay in all things much for little, eKarofi^ol
kuvea^oi&v, and from these early relations sprang both
the affection, to ihe inestimable, of which the following
correspondence bears evidence, and the habit, which it
pleased hun to maintain after he had become one of the
acknowledged masters of English letters, of confiding in
and consulting me about his work in progress. It was my
business to find fault ; to “ damn ” what I did not like ; a
duty which, as will be inferred from the following pages, I
was accustomed to discharge somewhat unsparingly. But he
was too manly a spirit to desire or to relish flattery, and too
true an artist to be content with doing less than his best : he
knew, moreover, in what rank of English writers I put him,
and for what audience, not of to-day, I would have him
labour. TtU PaMnure — so, in the last weeks of his life,
he proposed to inscribe to me a set of his collected works.
Not Palinurus so much as Polonius may perhaps — or so I
sometimes suspect — ^have been really tihe character ; but
hfe own amiable view of the matter has to be mentioned
in order to account for part of the tenor of the following
correspondence.’

I find Andrew Lang writing thus, after he had read the
book, probably in proof ; ‘ Next to nothing to mark. It
seems to me odd that while Thackeray’s shortest note was
written in his own maimer, there is next to nothing of what
R. L. S. calls “ style ” in his letters. It seems to have been
hard work for Mm to write as he did in print, or else a
wind that blew as it listed, not a kind of expression he could
not express himself without. This remark is far from iudd
or degant. The Samoan politics, like all politics, are a
bore, luckily there is not much of them. How could he
teach, decimals to a child of nature ! To myself they could
not be taught, not with tears of blood. I find it very inter-

244 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

esting as to character and landscape — it was not all beer
and breadfruit ; as we fancied. The South Sect Letters
were very hard reading, as well as hard writing, obviously
because it was a commission. I daresay you have left out
the best bits.’ ^

Colvin’s next task, concurrently with the amassing and
arranging of the correspondence, was*the publication of
Stevenson’s unfunded romance, We%r of Hermiston. St.
Ives, also unfinished, had been entrusted to Mr. (now Sir)
Arthur Quiller-Couch, for completion, and I find a number
of letters from ‘ Q ’ to Colvin on various points of diffi-
culty. St. Ives was in a different class from Weir of Her-
rmston, and there was a definite reason for finishing it,
because it was already running as a serial m a magazine.
Among those friends to whom Colvin showed Weir of
Hermtston were J. M. Barrie, Andrew Lang, Henry James,
and W. E. Henley.

Henley wrote : —

‘ 9 The Terrace, Barnes, S W , 4/11/95.

‘ Dear Colvin, — ^Herewith, by registered post, the type-
written copy of Weir of Hermiston. I knew not that it
was so immediately wanted, so, being very busy indeed with
Bums, I did not open the parcel till your letter came this
middle-day.

‘ I have read it aU : in parts perfunctorily, I fear ; but
mostly with great admiration. When it comes off — as in
the scene between Hermiston & Archie, after the scandal ;
in the wonderful chapter of the falling in love ; & in that
meeting — ^the last — ^by the Covenanter’s Stone : it seems
to me the best he did. The characters of the two Kirsties,
too, are admirable, in conception & in drawing alike ; &
old Hermiston is a most notable piece of ventriloquisiu. I
doubt not that I should find much else to praise in a less
hurried reading ; but for the present this may suffice to
^ow that I ’ve found my Lewis again, & in all his glory,
in this the last work of his hand.

^ In tlie FitzwiUiam Museum.

STEVENSON'S DEATH

245

‘ On tiie other hand, I am really distressed to find that
the thin^— which I 'd heard was a more or less complete
work — ^is but the first, the opening, chapters of a book ;
is, in fact, a fragment, which cannot, by any stretch of
words known to me, be described as anything else. The
story, as sketched by Mrs. Strong, is all to come : As yet,
we have but thS prehminanes — the preliminaries just
posited & no more; with the characters deplo3dng into
line to meet the first big situation— which is, the killing of
limes — ^the pivot on which the whole tremendous business
of the consummation is to turn. How Lewis would have
worked that out, it is not for any of us to guess ; & I shall
only say that all that business of the rescue & the flight to
foreign lands appears to me altogether unworthy of the
admirable begmning : as if he had made up his mind to
deal with a piece of tragedy — extremely well finished in
the later relations between Hermiston & his son, as m
Hermiston’s nickname, reputation, character, everything ;
& had then, in a mental funk, declined to face the conse-
quences & bolted off down a high way of the romance of
adventure ; where he was altogether at home, & by which,
as he knew, he could take his public with him to an ending
which, for all its decoration of unconventionality, is essen-
tially as conventional as they 're made.

‘ For this reason— (you haven’t asked my advice ; but
I make bold to give it) — I should print the thing as a frag-
mewi, d fraetma ml ; &— this especially— I should decline
to add a word as to the probable course of the story, which
I should leave exactly as Dickens left Edwin Drood, a
delightful & absorbing exercise to the imagination of every-
body that reads it. This for reasons which you can gather
fr om what I 've written above ; & for this other : which is
a big one: — ^that the tremendous situation up to which
the story 's made & the book written— which is, in fact, the
sole motif of the Wdr of Hermiston — ^is lifted, bodily, froin
Paul Clifford. Lewis knew the book, & we 've often discussed
the atuation : as we 've often discussed its possibilities for

246 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

the theatre. (He wrote a play called The Hangi^ Judge in
collaboration with his wife : in which the Judge was called
on to sentence his wife’s first husband ) And in any case,
you, as editor, wdl have to face the music, & acknowledge
his indebtedness ; if but to stop the mouth & forestall the
brag of the average Ass. Surely, it were a thousand times
better to do as I say ; & leave him smiBng from the grave
(as it were) m the face of a delighted & wondering audience,
m the contentment of one who has somethmg to say that
none else can grasp, & that will never be said by anyone,
since he, the only one to know, is stncken dumb ?

‘ I hope this view of the matter may commend itself to
you. In any case, if I can be of use to you in the matter qf
the dialect (I am rather good at Scotch just now), I shall
be glad to do my best. I thmk Lewis mistaken in writing
" aveehty ” “ po«latics,” & the hke, for they are English
words, & the accent should, as m Kidnapped & Catriona, be
taken for granted. Indeed, I ’m pretty sure that had Lewis
revised these pages, he ’d have reverted to the sounder
method. For the rest, you ’ll find that, here & there, I ’ve
ventured on an emendation. There ’s but one 1 in “ baihe ”
( — a magistrate). If you write “ neeg^bours ” instead of
“ neebors ” you make the “ gh ” a guttural : which is
absurd. Kirstie Junior could never have been “ Lady
Harmiston ” ; the Scots law lordships are for the wearers
alone ; Hermiston’s wife was Mrs. Weir, & Archie would
have been plain Weir of Hermiston. There are other points,
I think, to which I might take exception ; but these are all
I can recall just now. Excepting this ; that " tragic
meanness ” occurs in a book of poetry I know, & shoudd
either be set in quotation marks, or changed. It occurs
in the account of the hanging. “Antient blackness,” in
the chapter where Kirstie goes into Archie’s bedroom,
sounds to my accustomed ear like a reminiscence of another
book of poetry, the work of the same master. But I
haven’t time to verify the suspicion. — Sincerely yours,

‘W, E. H.’

STEVENSON’S DEATH 247

Henley on Weir of Hermiston again, the next day : ‘ We
know how Lewis worked; we know that no story ever
passed through his hands without a hundred changes. We
know that this is practically a first draft, and, knowing this,
we may fairly confess to knowing nothing of the final tenour
& the final form. I am utterly convinced (for one thing)
that he did not make the elder Kirsty the extraordinary
piece of womanhood she is merely to tell stories & hunger
for Ardiie. Even as I am utterly convinced that he would,
in the end, have gone back on all that business of the Four
Black Brothers & the rescue, & faced his problem like a man.

' I am not sure that even he would have succeeded in
makmg out a plausible excuse for Hermiston’s determina-
tion to preside at his son’s trial. Whatever Hermiston
might have resolved, he would have had the whole Bench
against him ; and Scotland was not so Roman as to tolerate
the spectacle of a father enforcing the law (with a rope’s
end) against his son. In Bulwer, if I remember aright, the
situation is less violently approached : in fact, is possible.
We shall never know if it would ever have been that in
R. L. S. What we do know is that we know — nothing at
alL Nothing, at any rate, except that at a given moment he
had sudi & such designs ; & that he might have [? reversed]
these designs (as he was in the habit of doing) at any other
moment, if any other moment had ever come.’

And again : —

‘ 9 The Terrace, Barnes, S.W., 10/11/95.

‘ Deah Colvin, — A last tip (I may have sent it but I
forget) : The Hanging Judge idea was suggested by a story
in Sheridan Lefanu’s Through a Glass Darkly ; a book for
which R. L. S. had a profound respect. I brought it on the
doth, as a motif for a play. One was written (as I said),
& submitted to Beerbohm T. But it came to no thing ; &
it wasn't for years that he (Lewis) took up the Hanging
Judge thing, & incarnated it in Mc^een of Braxfidd, who
is Wdr of Hermiston.

‘ Note, too, that the name “ Weir ” had a special signifi-

248 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

caace for Lewis : as being tbe name of one Major Weir, wbo
was called a Warlock, & was burned (together with his
sister : with whom he was accused of incest) xmder circum-
stances of pecuhar atrocity; & whose fame was long a
dreadful yet an integral part of the romance of Edinburgh.
— Yours sincerely, W. E. H.’

Sir (then Mr ) J. M. Barrie wrote thus : ‘ I have read it
with a delight beyond words and with a growing pain such
as I never felt when readmg a book before. For it is incom-
parably the best thing he ever did, and it is but a noble
fragment. I think of the preface to Pnnce Otto, and
here it seems to me that he has done it, here is the big book.
The Edin*^. life, the Black Brothers, these are on the “ bow
wow ” scale of Scott that he never touched before, and yet
it is the women that surprise me. The rest is what I always
supposed he could do, but I never believed he could do
the women. The mother is more surprising to me than
Braxfield, and the two Kirsties also. He seemed hitherto
to be afraid of himself when writing of women, to doubt his
own sincerity, so to speak ; Catriona was an exquisite child
and Barbara Grant a fine treatment from the outside ; but
here he gets “ into ” the very heart of woman, best of aU
in the last paragraph. Was not that what he wrote last ?
And K it not a pleasure to know that he kpew how good
it was and went to his wife to teU her ? All day I have been
thinking over the amanuensis details, and seeing in a vague
way what a magnificent story was imder weigh.

‘ It is most disappointing to hear that the publication
is delayed. I ’ll send it to Lang. ... Do come early this
week and let us talk about it. — ^Yours ever,

‘ J. M. Barrie ’ ^

And here is Henry James . —

* 34 De Vere Gardens, W., Juty 5th, 1895

' My dear Colvin, — ^Now that you have been so good
as to let me read W. of H. you must also let me add a word

1 In the Fitzmlliam Muse-um,

STEVENSON’S DEATH 249

to what I said to you a day or two since in sending you
back the MS. It weighs on my spirit greatly that there
should, as I gathered from what you said, be a danger that
the publication of this magnificent thing may be post-
poned to treat of other things — may not take place until
the “ psydiological moment ” is passed. And you didn’t
even tell me wh^ — I mean what will be gained by this
dreadful delay. I can’t tell you how I hope so grave a
mistake won’t be made. Surely Mrs. Stevenson doesn’t
desire it ? Has she expressed any such widi ? The moment
for the book to appear seems to me, overwhelmingly, to be
the moment at which the emotion caused by Louis’s death,
& by the general knowledge that he had left a great piece,
a supreme piece, of work unfinished, keeps the imagination
of the public still warm about him and makes the work
count double as a contribution to his fame. For God’s
sake let us have in this year of his death the thing he was
so splendidly doing when he died I It will deepen immea-
surably all our sense of loss — & that sense of loss will add
to our tenderness for the other things. If those come first
(did you teU me there are 2 of them ?) the sense of loss will
— as they are inferior — be cruelly less, & the whole air cold
for Hermiston when it does come. I must teU you frankly
that I should regard that as a great calamity & a grave
unkindness ter his memory. I can’t imagine any reason
for our taking the other things first that is not a reason
of an order Altogether inferior to this consideration that
touches so the very essence of Louis’s honour 1 Do let me
say to you very positively that I hope you will do everjTthing
in yovT power to make it easy as possible that Hermiston
shall come to us with all the sacred beauty of its hour : &
do above all let me hear if Mrs. Louis has pronotmeed.—
Yours, my dear Colvin, ever, Henry James ’

And again : ‘ If his [Burlingame of Scribner’ si contention
is just that the publication of Hermi^on (I mean the success
of the same) can be hdped by any reference to my high

250 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

opinion of the fragment, he is highly welcome to make that
reference in any way in whidi you may have assented, or be
disposed to assent, to any similar reference to your own
pronoimcement. I shall be comforted by the company
and the cause. Will you kindly say this to him — ^in any-
thing you may be sa3nng on the matter ? ’

Weir of Hermiston came out in i896,<with Colvin’s ad-
mirable Epilogue summing up the probabilities as to its
ending.

The first edition of Stevenson’s Letters, the full corre-
spondence, under Colvin’s editorship, appeared in 1899,
without the Vatlima Letters, but m the editions that are
now accessible the Vailirm Letters are included.

I select a few tributes.

This from J. M. Barrie : ' It is a very triumphant result
and no other man could have done it. I am saddened to
read your announcement that the biography will not be by
you, but you know how I must feel that you have built a
noble memorial to your friend. Never was a hterary man
with a better friend and to all who can read between the
lines this will remain your book as well as R. L. S.’s — and a
mighty credit to you both.’

From Andrew Lang : ‘ The R. L. S. Letters reached me,
for review, in such wise that I had only two hours for the
whole job. Therefore it is Nothing. However, I said your
part could not be better done by men or angels, and that
is true, if trite.’

From Lord Carlisle, in January 1900 : ' I left England
just when the Stevenson book came out and so it happened
that I have only just got hold of it and I have now finidied
it, to my great regret. Why were there not six vols. or
better eight ? That seems to me the only error that you
have made.

*I do congratulate you very sincerely on the way in
which you have succeeded in this delightful work. I feel
more than evar to love and be charmed by your friend, and
I wish that it had been my luck to know him myself—

STEVENSON’S DEATH

25X

though you will likely say, that I do not in these days find
time to’ see much of the friends that I have — of which I
am only too conscious. . .

‘ But I am surprised at your critical inaccuracy. You
state that Sam Bough was a “ Scottish ” pamter. He was
a Carlisle man, although a member of the Scotch academy.
This is really equivalent to sa 3 dng that Leonardo was a
Milanese, i^d I grieve for the base concession to Scoti5*s^.
I observe that when Stevenson was young Scotch was good
enough for him and the later sham-tartan phrase only came
in later.’

From Will H. Low, the American artist and friend of
Stevenson, with regard to his review, m Scnbner’s Magazine,
of Colvm’s edition of Stevenson’s Letters. After stating that
Colvin ,in the Introduction, ‘ had said ah,’ he continues ;
‘and said it — Whence this letter— in a way that Louis,
somewhere, must nse and call you blessed. I cannot begin
to tell you m my left-handed way what a deep debt of
gratitude I and all who love R. L. S. are under to you. I
take it that as a rule, though the finished work shows no
trace of it, your writing is more the child of reflection than
spontaneity, but in this case you were surely inspired beyond
yourself. I have read, and re-read within a few months,
your Keats with pleasure and profit ; but so ludd, so sym-
pathetically appreciative and so temperate a performance
as the Introduction is not often given as the fruit of any
man’s life. And here falls, as R. L. S. would say, a con-
fession which I must make. I have felt, to some degree,
chiefly through the assuring protests in the Vailima Letters,
that you had exerased your ri^ts of mentor somewhat
unsparingly at times. But in the light of this last l^ve-
taking of our much loved fnend your attitude seems the
only one you could have taken ; and he from whom we
expected so much knew as well as you that danger muffled
itself in the guise of toleration of aught save his best.
This is an awkward thing to say and is perhaps awkwardly
expressed, but I venture to say it, for I too loved him, with

252 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

perhaps a touch of jealousy, but at any rate with a love
which took much of the light of life from me when he died,

‘ I am sorry for the cause of your relinquishing the Life,
the more sorry for this foretaste of what it might have
been ; but no circumstance of health or engrossmg labor
can now rob us of this Introduction, which wiU surely
remain as an adequate resume of StevensOn’s work.’

Apropos Mr. Low, I am just m time to make an extract or
two from his very sympathetic article on Colvin in the
Saturday Review of L%teiature, of New York, for June 9,
1928. After remarking that America does not produce the
' exact equivalent ’ of a museum official hke Colvin, Mr.
Low says that, in his own house, he ‘ gave the impression,
rare, I think, among those who follow the hazardous life of
literature or the arts, of absolute security, of a life sheltered,
protected, and consecrated to those useful adjuncts of civi-
lization, the arts, by the wise beneficence of his people, in
full appreciation of the value of the arts, as a part of then:
national patrimony I had long been familiar with what
I may call a like national attitude in the French social S3stem
in regard to arts and letters, but to find it in a nation speak-
ing my own language (with a slightly different accent at
times) I thought gratifying, and in Colvm’s case I considered
its benefits well bestowed.’

The article closes with these words : ‘ withal, he was, in
regard to his own work, exceedingly critical, if not humble,
as the extract with which I began would seem to prove, and
I am tempted, in conclusion, to quote a passage from a
private letter written only a year ago to an American
admirer, who moreover did not care for Stevenson : “lam
only sorry (Colvin wrote) you do not share my loving admira-
tion of R. L S., I mean, as a writer, apart from what he
earned as a man. In my view all that I have ever written,
or tried to write, is not worth as literature any half a dozen
casual sentences of his.” ’

•From Marcel Schwob, the French critic ; ‘ Thank you
with all my heart for the two beautiful volumes of tiie

STEVENSON'S DEATH

253

Letters of Stevenson. They are deKghtful. I have just
finMied the first, and it seems to me now that I have known
Stevenson all my life and talked with him. All those who
love Stevenson through his books ought to be very thankful
to you. What a pity you do not write his life 1 I am so
sorry. ... I shall try and have articles written on the
‘ Letters ’ in various places. You can rely on me for that.
They are a “ Livre de chevet.” Never was more delightful
correspondence publidied.’

From Mrs. Humphry Ward : ' I feel I must send you
a few words of warmest congratulation even before I have
properly read your triumphant & delightful book. Humphry
and I have been snatching it from each other, and I don’t
feel that I have done more than nibble as yet. But I have
seen enough to know that it is the book of many years,
that you have done it beautifully, & that it is a lasting
monument first to the most dehghtful of geniuses, & next
to the kindest of friends. What a bubbling soiurce of life
& joy & humour he was, through all the miseries of the
body ! — ^how good he was to befriend, to have for a friend '
The irrepressible, inexhaustible power of brain that the
book shows, the perpetual inventiveness, fertility and
resource, are only matched by the never-failing charm of
the man, the sweetness of his sincerity and courage and
fun, the pathos of his struggle with weakness & death, I
envy everybody who had to do with him — you & Mrs. Sitwell
and Sir Henley & Sir Gosse — ^most of all. Well ! — ^he is
indeed placed among the stars, and there is not a human
soul that win not rejoice to see him there, and will not be
grateful to you for your share in the happy indisputable fact.'

One of the most charming letters in the collection is
that which follows, from a young actress who afterwards
became famous as a mimic on both sides of the Atlantic : —

' do "Dramatic News,’’ New York, Dec. ’99.

‘ My DEAR Mr, Sidney Colvin, — I doubt if this letter
will ever reach you for I haven’t the faintest idea how to

254 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

find you but I shaU address it to " c/o Scribners ” & trust
that they may forward it to you — Not that it wiil be of
any importance if you ever do get it, for it is only an in-
significant word of gratitude, which can mean nothing,
coming from me — but it is deep & sincere & I feel a strong
desire to express it — I have just finished the first volume —
& am well on with the second of Stevenson’s letters, & they
have given me an aching sense of friendship for bi-m — &
indeed for you to whom so many of them are addressed.
I dread gettmg to the end of the volume & having to realise
that Stevenson is dead — & there can be no more of them
nor him 1 once played “ Arethusa ” in the produc-

tion at the Avenue of Admtml Guinea — & I have written
some valueless music to a few of the verses from The Child’s
Garden — and somehow or other — I can't explain'why — I feel
as if I knew Stevenson. I don’t know why I write to you
to thank you for his Letters — except that they have moved
me & made me ache — & want to speak to some one who was
close to him. I beg you. Sir, to forgive me. — I am sincerely
& honestly — yours, Cecilia Loftus ’

(' CissiE Loftus ’)

There are many letters from Sir Arthur Quiller-Coudh,
better known as ‘ Q,’ chiefly about little problems that
arose from time to time during his task of completing
Stevenson’s tmfinished romance St. Ives. Now and then
he touches upon more general matters, as, writing from
Fowey (or ‘ Troy Town ’) ]ust after the Diamond Jubilee :
‘ We performed great feats here on Jubilee Day. I worked
the people up & we lined the streets with trees from end
to end, & put up arches & criss-crossed all between with
lanterns & bunting until I had a mile of green bazaar. And
we fed 1850 handsomely by the waterside (let alone 350
sailors, British & foreign. Swedes, Russians, Italians,
infidels & hereticks), & marched & cotmter marched by
htmdreds in fancy dress under the lanterns, and then danced
' till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of our boots.

STEVENSON’S DEATH

255

‘The local band xmder our windows roused us out at
7 a.m. and we crept to bed at 3 a.m. In short, sir, the
place went off its head — and we hadn’t a man drunk : a
few merry, but not what-you-may-call-drunk. The town
has been shaking hands upon it ever since.’

From Henry Sidgwick, in 1897, on Stevenson’s Lay
ilfomis, which Colvin seems to have submitted to him in proof:
‘ I certainly am inclined to regard [it] as of great interest
— but rather because it throws light on Stevenson than
because it throws light on ethics ! It seems to me that
the reader of Stevenson’s novels soon gets the idea that
he has a certain kind of interest in morality, but it often
seems to be an interest of a decidedly eccentnc and even
hostile kind. I think therefore that ^th the fact that he
threw his mmd into the subject with so much vigour and
also the exact attitude of his mind as revealed by these
essays are valuable as clearing up a kind of perplexity, and
satisf3dng a kind of curiosity which the discerning reader
of his other books is likely to feel. The fact that the student
of ethics will find them often amateurish does not seem to
me to weigh much on the other side : Even when the sub-
stance of fibe thought consists of what an instructed reader
may regard as rather trite half-truths, the expression is
always fredi and vigorous — indeed, to my taste, it is liable
to err from excess of vigour— so that the whole result is
not dull.’

The last letter from Henley that I can find is dated 1898.
Colvin had asked for information on certain points con-
cerning Stevenson, which Henley was unable to supply.
He concludes : ‘ It is a pleasure to know that you can work
at aH. Come & see me when you can or will. And call
upon me for memories or the like whenever you choose to
do so. I am always ^ad to be of use — if I can.’

CHAPTER XVIII

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : III
AFTER HER HUSBAND’S DEATH

1894-1900

When, after Stevenson’s death, Mrs. Stevenson was alone,
first in Samoa and afterwards in HonoMu and California,
it was to Mrs. Sitwell that she poured out her heart with
fullest frankness. The letters, which are numerous, are of
the deepest interest. Two only were printed by Colvin in
the Empire Review in 1924, and these I mark with a
footnote. The remainder now see the light for the first
time.

To Mrs. Sitwell pDecember 1894] : ‘ I can teU you very
little of the awful catastrophe that has befallen us that you
do not know. Lately he had been in excellent health and
growing fat, but so full blooded that I was troubled about
that. The former hemorrhages had been a safety valve,
and for a long time they had ceased. ...

‘ I did not teU you the doctors’ words about Louis : it
was, they said, apople^ combined with paral5^is of the
lungs. There was no suffering : almost instant and com-
plete unconsciousness. You have a great deal of influence
when you like. Will you not, for Louis’ sake, start a
popular feeling that his grave, where he lies wrapped in
the Union Jack, diall not be on alien soil ? . . . Only oh
be quick. I cannot tell you of the true kindness of the
Samoan people. That poor chiefs brought their fine mats
— ^which are equivalent to title deeds of estates — ^to throw
over him that he might lie royally, like a high chief, is little
compared to other things that I have not the heart nor time

MRS R L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: III 257

to teU. . , . For three da37s I had known that something
terrible was going to happen in the house. That last day
I was almost msane with terror and Louis had just been
laughing at my childishness and teasing me about it.

‘ P.S . — I have not made my meaning clear about “ alien
soil ” Louis asked to lie where he is, but he did not expect
to lie in German soiL In memory of Louis they should
give his beloved island an English protectorate.’

To Mrs. SitweU. From Vaihma. [1895] : ‘ I am just
worn out with wnting letters that have to be done; at
the same time I have a visitor in the house to entertain ;
two more commg tomorrow, and Tuesday I am going
across the island, earned by men ; aU the food, bedding, &c.
must be prepared here, and carried over the mountains.
The village that I am gomg to is one that particularly
adored Louis and has overwhelmed me with presents. I
feel bound, now, to accept their present mvitation, though
it makes me thred to even think of it.’ 1

To Colvin. From San Francisco. [1895] : ‘ I believe,
for him, all is for the best ; he went as he wished to go,
when he wished to go, leaping ofi from the highest pinnacle
with the great drums beating behind him. Could he have
arranged his own life and death how little things would
have been dianged. With such thoughts I try to console
myself and pretend that I would not have had it different.
It is hard to believe that I am to go on and on indefiinitely
and always alone ; it seems impossible. After all these
years of preparation I was not ready when the time came.
That very day I said to him, “ I am not a coward ; for a
woman, I am brave.” Vam words ; where is my courage
now? I am not altogether selfish in my grief, for I
do think of the others who loved him— more particularly
of you.

‘ Graham Balfour, the true and steadfast, one among a
thousand, will be with us in another montii. I fear this
climate for him, but he will probably go almost at once to-

* Printed in the Empire Review.

E

125 ^ TEtE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

England. I want to go also to be with you when you are
writing the Life, but I am not weU and the expense is pro-
hibitive. I know I could be of use to you and I grudge
your not having everythmg that you might need : but there
is the stem fact, I cannot.’

To Colvin. From San Francisco. [1895] : ‘ I am glad,
but not surprised that you felt as I dad about Hermiston.
I hope you did not object to my note to the Times. I could
not bear that story of Loms being depressed about his
waning popularity. I saw it everywhere.

‘ I have found a scratching on an old canvas that I did of
Louis when I first knew him. I cannot remember much
about it, except that I idly marked it with charcoal without
any intention m particular. Bob somehow had it and sent
it to me when Lloyd was last in England. The interesting
thing is that the likeness is very strong and brings back
Louis’s face as I first saw it. I am going to send a photo-
graph of it to you. It is not artistic — it is nothing but a
good likeness ; but I think that is much.

' I agree entirely with you that Hermiston is to [be]
published first. There is no doubt in my mind about
that. I am gomg to write down notes concerning Louis
to send you: just small things that I remember. They
may be useless but they may not, at any rate no harm
will be done.

‘ I feel that in writing to you I reach our dear friend
Henry James, but no one dse.’

To Colvin. From San Francisco. July 17, [1895] :
‘ Graham Balfour has started for England and wiU arrive
not very long after this letter.

‘ In looking over further papers to give Mr. Balfour to
carry to you, I found the dedication to me as Louis first
[wrote] it for Hermiston. Please put it in as he meant it
to be. He pinned it to my bed curtains when I was asleep,
with other explanatory verses. Please do not leave it out.
'I send you the original, though I believe you have a copy
already. I would like to have this back again when -you

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : III 259

have finidied with it. Mr. Balfour will soon be with you,
and can lell you of us what little there is to tell.’

This was the dedication to War of Hermision

‘ I saw ram faUmg and the rainbow drawn
On Lammermnir Hearkening I heard again
In my precigjtons city beaten bells
Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar,

Intent on my own race and place, I wrote
Take thou the writing : thine it is For who
Burmshed the sword, blew on the drowsy coal.

Held still the target higher, chary of praise
And prodigal of counsel — who but thou ?

So now, in the end, if this the least be good.

If any deed be done, if any fire

Bums in the imperfect page, the praise be thine.’

To Colvin. From San Francisco. Aug. 15 [1895] :
‘ Did I ever tell you that a Swedenborgian Mimster, truly
" a man of culture,” asked me whether Charles was Louis’
hterary executor. I said no, that Mr. Colvin was. ” Sidney
Colvm ? ” asked he, " the former Cambridge professor ? ”
I said yes, on which he expressed his satisfaction, saying
nearly what I have always said of you, “ one can always
trust to his honour and his good taste.” “ How do you
know ? ” I could not help but ask. ” I have read all he
has written,” was the reply. A good many other people
have begged me to tell them all that was possible about
you, excusing their curiosity by their admiration of your
work. You seem to be very well known amongst the
better class of people here.’

August 19th [1895] : ‘ What you say of Hermision is
exactly what I have thought all along. I insist that U comes
out as soon as possible. It may be that you are wrong and
that I am wrong, but I must act according to what seems to
me right I do not think that you and I have ever differed
in a matter of this kind, and I am e«:eedmgly glad that we
do not differ now.

‘ I send with this the photograph of the sketch I told you

26 o the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

of. The photographer has marked it over to get out the
breaks on the canvas, but has really not changed hn3dhing
except in making the thing look like a photograph. On
the lower hp there is a smudge that should be put right,
but I am afraid to touch anythmg just now. ... I do not
know how it will stnke you, but inartistic as it is, it recalls
Louis in his youth as nothing else does

‘ Louis left me something better than money ; he left
me true and steadfast friends.’

Mrs. Stevenson’s portrait of her husband as she first
knew him at Fontamebleau was redrawn by T. Blake
Wirgman, and was reproduced for Sir Graham Balfour’s
Life. I use it again in this book.

To Mrs. Sitwell. From San Francisco. September 13,
[1895] : ‘ I have seen your brother ; a really dehghtful
brother, in no way to be improved upon. Also a handsome
and very refined high bred looking brother. We talked of
you, naturally, and I told him all I could think of concern-
ing you. It was very touching to see with what difficulty
he restramed his tears when speaking of you. “ Fanny was
my favourite sister,” he said. And ” Fanny hzis always
wanted to see Venice ; and so she shall, yet. I am deter-
mined she shall.” He wished to know if you were beautiful
as you used to be. I could only say that you were very
beautiful when I saw you first, and very beautiful when I
saw you last. Indeed I wanted to kiss him, and I almost
believe if no one else had been present I should have done
so. It seems odd to suddenly feel the most tender affec-
tion for a stranger ; but I think your brother must be used
to inspiring such sentiment. But I suppose there is nothing
I can say about him that you don’t know already except
that I have seen him and loved him on sight. I am expect-
ing him to come m any moment. . , .

‘ Please tell S. C. that ” The Great North Road ” is un-
doubtedly early work, but no one can give the exact date.
I suppose he can guess as nearly as any one. As he says,
in the early Henley period. I waited to ask Uoyd. I am

MRS. R L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS : III 261

glad S. C. liked the photograph of the old thing I did of
Louis in»his youth. It is almost in rags, having kicked
about in Bob’s studio for years. I will try to remove the
smudge on the lip. It is so rotten that I may not be able
to do much with it.’ 1

The brother was Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, from whose
reminiscences I have already quoted. He thus corrobo-
rates, in that earlier book, Mrs. Stevenson’s account of the
interview : ‘ When I was in San Francisco m 1896 I called
on Mrs. Stevenson, and as soon as I told her who I was she
put both arms round me and gave me a hearty kiss.’

To Colvin. From San Francisco. [1895] : ' Mr. Fether-
stonhaugh has been to see me ,* a very handsome, refined,
high-bred person whom I loved at sight. He gave me, in
parting, a httle book with “ from Fanny Sitwell’s brother ”
on the fly leaf. When he spoke of his sister Fanny it was
with difficulty he restrained his tears. As he turned to go
away I called him back and kissed him. It was an impulse
that I could not resist, but I think we were both old enough
to make it perfectly a right and proper thing. I have not
often been more touched.’

To Colvin. From Honolulu. [1896] ; ‘ We are much
more comfortable here than in San Francisco : there is no
prosperity in the islands, so everything is down, and we
board, of the best, at a very reasonable rate. The Sans
Souci used to be a fashionable sea side place, but it is now
almost deserted. We have a fine large cottage in the grounds
all to ourselves. A friend of mine has lent us a horse and
a little carriage, a very neat turnout, so we are quite aris-
tocrats. Lloyd and I went today to see the queen for the
first time. As I looked at her kind and dignified face, and
remembered this day a year ago, and the terrible change
since then, I nearly fainted. When I could hear what she
said, she was talking of Louis ; “ It was through this door
he came, and in this chair that my friend sat. I was very
sad when he came, for it was just after the overthrow, but*

» Tins portrait is reproduced opposite p. 176.

262 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

he left me almost cheerful ” How many could say that
of Loxiis — I was very sad when he came, but he? left me
almost cheerful ' — Two years ago I came up from Samoa
to nurse him here, in this very house. Everythmg speaks
of him to me, almost as much as at home. I walk in the
paths where he and I walked ; I sit at the same window
where every evenmg we watched the cetting of the sun.
It is all like yesterday.

‘ I have read over the letters [the Vatlima Letters] ag ain
and again. I am glad they were published. There is so
much of Louis in them. He said to me several times,
“ Colvin sees me in an atmosphere of his own : when I am
dead don't let him make me out a damned angel.” These
are the exact words. Well, the letters show all there was
of the worst of him ; and anyone worth caring for will love
him the better for that worst. And he will not have
appeared as ” a damned angel.”

‘ I have had a little worry with Aunt Maggie about the
inscription on the tomb. I suppose Palema has told you
what we propose — ^his own verses in English on the one
side of a high chief tomb, and the verse from Ruth, “ Thy
country shall be my country,” in Samoan on the other.
Atmt Maggie wants the usual texts, “ In my Father’s
house are many mansions,” and several others of the
same sort. It is very difficult not to offend her. But
of all things in the world Louis’ tomb must show no
bad nor even doubtful taste. I know what she really
wants, poor soul. She was always doubtful of Louis’ behef
in what are called the truths of religion, and being doubtful
wishes to convmce the world at the sacrifice of her own
sincerity. I said to her that he had been in his life a true
follower of Christ, and that diould be enough. She knows
that as wen as we. How many of the rest of us can say
half as much ? One of the missionaries said to me that
he wished that he had been able to come as near. And
•this missionary knew as much of Louis’ mind on such
subjects as was possible for words to convey, but he wasn’t

MRS. R. L. STEVENSON’S LETTERS: III 263

the usual narrow idiot that missionaries generally are. We
are very fortunate to have the best in Samoa. The best,
it seems to me, of aH denominations. There is a little wild
Baptist missionary that I love ; and there is another, some
sort of dissenter, that I love also. And so would you if
you knew them.’

Palema I do c.ot identify. ‘ Aunt Maggie ’ was the
family name for Stevenson’s mother.

To Colvin. From Honolulu. March 20 [1896] : ‘ Your
letter has filled me with the desire to go to England that
I might be near you durmg the work on the Life, If I
went, I could not stay long ; of course I am not sure that
I could go at all ; it would depend entirely on finances.

‘ I am — I can only say infuriated — ^when I think of those
damnable newspapers, that they should have caused you
annoyance. I quite understand why no one was ever
punidied in San Francisco for shooting the editor of a news-
paper. I think there should be a club something on the
lines of the Suicide Club, each member boimd over to kill
an editor when the lot fell to him. I think I would join
that club if they would accept women members. Speaking
of dubs : there is a large philanthropic boys’ dub in
America with many “ Chapters ” in different parts. The
Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter of Cincinnati, who used
to correspond'with Louis, have sent me their badge, a bit of
blue enamd with R. L. S. on it, was it not nice of them ? I
see your difficulty about the Life, I should say go ahead as
frahkly as possible, and then, if necessary, we could tone
down. I diould like to be honest, but at the same time not
to hurt anyone’s feelings. That alwa]^ troubled Louis.'

To Colvm. From Honolulu, April 24 [1896] : ‘ And
now I am terrified lest I have given the impression that I
am absolutely meaning to go to you. The trouble is I am
wavering about without courage. Of courage I used to have
enough for all that came, but I fear it has been used up
almost entirdy. The one thing alwaj^ in my mind is the
Life. It is all we can do for Louis now, and you are the only

264 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

one fit for the work ; and as you say it will be a great work.
Aside from all else there have been so few lives <of such
absorbing interest as Louis'. Even leaving Hterature
out of the question.

‘ I want to wnte a long letter and say many things. I
can’t because I am too tired. Still I know that you imder-
stand much of what I should like to say, without words.
My trust in you, my belief in you, my deep affection for
you : it is of these I should hke to speak. I know I need
not, but as I write, my heart is full.’

Mrs. Stevenson, as it happened, did go to London for a
while to discuss her husband’s Life, which at that time
Colvin was considering. In the end he decided to confine
himself to editing the correspondence, and the Life was
written by Graham Balfour. Finally let me 'quote from
a letter written by Mrs. Stevenson on her return from
London to San Francisco. It begins by referring to a poem
written to her by her husband ; ‘ I have just received your
letter asking about adding the poem addressed to me,
“ Dusky, trusty,” etc., to the new edition. Do just what
you think well to do. It is a very beautiful thing, and I
do not think it would be bad taste to pubhsh it. As to the
other, “ Oh, God, if that were all,” I agree that this should be
kept for the Life. But there was another that Louis rather
hked — I think it was called “ In praise of dark women ” ;
what do you think of adding that ? I only suggest the
looking at it‘. I shall, as I have always done, feel sure that
you have done right, whatever your views may be. . . .

‘ I am glad you like the photograph of the portrait. I
think I can put the blurred place right. It can do no harm
to try as it would not be spoiled ; charcoal rubs off at once.
I think there are indications of the parts rubbed off. It is
a great chance that I have it at all. If I had only known
when I sat " idly scratching ” that day. The canvas is
much dilapidated, having been lying about in Bob’s place
all these years, . . .

' % hear of several others proposing to lecture on Louis’

MRS. R. L STEVENSON’S LETTERS: III 265

life in Samoa, but in particular is a Mr. Chalmers, the head
of the Mission, a fiery little man of real genius, whose lectures
are said to be superb. ... If you could meet him you
would find him more interestmg than almost anyone you
ever met. He is more of an explorer than a missionary,
and with absolutely none of the narrowness of the usual
missionary. The «missionary soaety in Apia was shaken
to its foundations when he was there. The natives were
forbidden to dance, and Chalmers danced the Highland
fling on the missionary verandah before a great crowd of
them. He also smoked a pipe in public when smoking was
considered one of the seven deadly sins. If he lectures in
England I am sure that his lecture wiU be worth hearing. . . .

‘ A curious incident took place a day or so ago. It
seems that an Indian boy who had been brought to Sa m oa
when a child, when he was adopted and reared by the
natives, thought it a good scheme to stow away on a ship
and come to America. Naturally he was thrown out on
the wharf hke spoiled fruit. The poor wretch wandered
about shivering in the cold, sleeping in doorways, and
eating what refuse he could pick up, until he was nearly
dead. " It is a strange place this,” he said ; ” why, in
Samoa everybody loves me ; but here not one man loves
me ! When I asked for some bread nobody said, ‘ Come in,
poor boy, and 'eat and rest while I get you some clothes ’ ;
no ; they all said, ‘ Go away.’ ” He looked all along the
streets for a cocoanut tree or a breadfruit, but could find
none. “ I walked seven miles, one day, and there was not
a cocoanut,” he said. At last, when he had taken a cold
and felt dreadfully ill, BeUe passed him, and his quick eyes
caught sight of the South Sea ear-rings. “ There,” he said,
“ I looked up to the old man (South Sea for God) and said,

' Now, God, help me,’ and began to sing a Samoan song.”
Naturally, Belle turned at once; when he saw her face
fully, he cried out her Samoan name “ Teuila." Of course,
he is with us, deeping in a camp bed in the kitchen, and
acting as omr servant, until we can persuade some diip to

266 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

take him home. It is a pretty story, is it not ? You never
saw anythmg as like a lost dog as when he came, nor any-
thing as like the dog found as he is now ; our clothes are
brushed threadbare, and our shoes are blacked until they
are stiff. But he thinks this a wicked, hard-hearted country.
“ I am only twenty-two,” he said, “ and I don’t want to
die, but nobody cared. The people cais’t love each other
as we do in Samoa. It was so strange to find that no man
loved me. It made me very much ’fraid.” At this moment
he is eating a huge watermelon, the first fruit that he had
seen that is the same in Samoa.’ ^

Mrs. Stevenson died in 1914, and her ashes were placed
in her husband’s tomb in the following year. Her life, by
her sister, Mrs. Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, was published
in 1920.

This chapter may fittingly end by recalling to readers’
minds the ‘ dusky, trusty ’ poem : —

‘ MY WIFE

' Trusty, dusky, vivid, true.

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew.

Steel-true and blade-straight.

The great artificer
Made my mate

‘Honour, anger, valour, fire;

A love that hfe could never tire.

Death quench or evil stir.

The mighty master
Gave to her.

‘ Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,

A fellow-farer true through life.

Heart-whole and soul-free.

The august father
Gave to me.’

1 In the Efnpirf Bevtfw.

CHAPTER XIX

HENRY JAMES
1885-1911

I CANNOT discover when Colvin and Henry James first met ;
but the earliest letter in the collection belongs to 1885, and
is quoted on page 168. Henry James was then forty-two,
exactly Colvin’s age, and was hving in East Bolton Street,
The intiiflacy between him and the Colvms, whenever it
began, was close, and lasted until his death in 1916. It was
at one of Lady Colvin’s musical parties in Kensington
Palace Gardens that I had my oidy conversation with — or
shall I say audience of ’> — the great cosmopolitan, soon — for
this must have been just before the War — ^to become a
British subject. In an article in the Empire Review in 1924,
not reprinted, Colvin makes a very interesting analysis of
James and Stevenson, so different yet so sympathetic to
each other. 'I have called them,’ Colvin says, ‘two of the
finest of aH artists in Englidi letters. They were at the
same time two of the most contrasted and unlike. The
contrast was not less in the tenor and conditions of their
lives than in the choice and handling of their themes and
the measure and history of the welcome their works severally
encountered from the pubKc, — the early tales and novels of
James being received with keen appreciation by at least the
critical portion of that public, and the work of Ms latter
years with relative and at last almost complete neglect ;
while of Stevenson’s much briefer career the first products
made their way slowly, but the acclamation wMch followed
on the appearance first of Treasure Island, and then- of
Jehyll and Hyde, continued to greet almost aH his so versa-

268 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

tile and various work until the end. Time flies and memories
are short : will readers forgive me if by some pltefatory
words of reminiscence and quotation I seek to make the
circumstances both of the friendship and the contrast
freshly present to their minds ?

‘ Two things about Stevenson that were irniate, ingrained,
and ineradicable were his Scotchness and his passion for
outdoor hfe and activity. He himself speaks somewhere
of his Scotchness as “ tendmg to intermittency " ; and
no doubt his adventurous readiness to adapt himself to
new environments and experiments, his frequentation of
France and Amenca and absorbing pursuit of letters, not
merely as a vocation or means of self-expression or appeal,
but as a fine art deliberately practised in the spirit and
familiar company of artists, had done something to modify
it in unessentials, — ^had superficially tempered the Scot in
him with alien elements. But elsewhere he writes of himself
as haunted about the heart all the while, even in the midst
of the distractions and delights of his new tropical home, by
yearnings after “ that cauld, auld huddle of bare hiUs,” his
true, stem and naked motherland. And not only did he
remain frankly Scotch to the end in the accent of his speech
and the racy, full-blooded human quality of his humour :
in the vital depths of his being he was the true descendant
of his stem-conscienced, indomitably hardy dnd strenuous,
coast-haunting, hghthouse-building Northern forbears ; only
by a perversity of Fate a descendant physically incapable
of following their vocation. . . .

‘ When at intervals during his semi-invalid years he was
able to get out and about, the company he most cared for
was at no time that which was to be found in drawing-
rooms. Charmer though he could be among his equals, he
as a rule only cared to mix with such among them as either
presented to his discernment experiences or faculties for
experience beyond the common, or such as followed pursuits
akin to his own, writers and artists or trained lovers of
books and of the arts. ... A chosen few of these he

HENRY JAMES 269

attached warmly to himself; but he had no inclination
to follcfw them into the ordmaiy haunts of polite society,
and the average members of that society, those having
no special gift or attainment or experience to recommend
them, he let go by him, as he has somewhere said, “ like
seaweed ” Elemental and unsophisticated human nature,
the seaman and «the husbandman and the shepherd and
the smith, and all such as feel the daily pinch and stress of
life, down to the cadger, the chimney-sweep, thief, vagrant,
and prostitute — these, and the variegated company with
which he peopled m imagination the historic past, were
all more real and more significant to him than were the
majority among the comfortable classes of his contem-
poraries. Neither by gift nor choice had he the makings
of an attentive student of these, with their uneventful ways
of life — ^uneventful at any rate on the surface — ^with their
passions and tragedies, supposing them to have any, decor-
ously cloaked and veiled, their niceties and nuances of
smooth everyday intercourse and incident, their pettinesses
of social competition and intrigue, their intricacies and
delicacies of reticent pathos and subdued romance and
emotion conventionally schooled and harnessed.

‘To Henry James, on the other hand, it was just the
intense perception and assiduous study of these niceties
and nuances, 'these subtle emotional half-tones of polite
contemporary hfe, which gave the motive and inspiration
of his art, but for one or two experimental exceptions
(among which I should point to The Princess Casamassima
as at once the widest in range and most elaborate in hand-
ling). American by birth, European and predominatingly
Fraich by early habit and training, and finally by choice
and domestication deliberately and determinedly English,
he had no deep-seated primary cast of mind and tempera-
ment corresponding to that Scottishness of Stevenson.
Neither had he, so far as was apparent from his course of
life, anything of Stevoison's instinctive craving for action
and 2fest for whatever consequences action might entail.

270 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

but was rather both congenitally and by choice a looker-on.
... He has conferred many of his own characteristics,
only as exercised m a more ideal and romantic milieu, on
the personage of Benvolio in his early story so named. That
story, as many of my readers wiU remember, narrates with
characteristic subtlety of analysis and charm of style the
" hesitancies ” of one in whose nature thecpassion to observe
replaces the passion to possess, and who until almost too
late is content to watch and study, without claimmg her
for his own, the woman in whom he discerns “ a divine
embodiment of all the amenities, the refinements, the
complexities of life.”

' It is recorded of James how m the pursuit of this branch
of human study he, m the earlier days of his London career,
dined out in the course of a single twelvemonth not less
than a hundred and eight tunes. Of Stevenson during
my intimacy with him I cannot remember that he ever
once made an appearance at a set dinner party or in dress
clothes, though there is evidence of his having in early
Edinburgh days occasionally made so much sacrifice of
his Bohemian habits in order to please his parents.

‘ With all these contrasts between them of ongin, of ex-
perience, of temperament, of predilection, the two men had
nevertheless much in common. Both were spirits essen-
tially loveable, affectionate and generous both, as the
admirably untouchy reception by each of the other’s very
frankest criticisms stands to prove, were signally free from
all taint of jealousy and meanness : both — ^though in the
case of Henry James it needed intimate knowledge to realize
as much — ^were men of exceptionally intense feeling, of an
emotional nature doubly and trebly as strong as the common
nm of mankind. But the main resemblance, and that
which probably first drew dose the links which were to
bind them, was their common attachment to the same
pursuit, their studious and passionate devotion to the art
of letters as art. Even here a marked contrast is to be
noted between their several methods and ideals as artists.

HENRY JAMES 271

Stevenson both by nature and choice aiming constantly at
compression and simplification, at getting the utmost out
of the single, the one revealing and vivifymg word, and at
the ruthless cutting down of the non-essential ; James on
the other hand ever more and more mclined to yield to his
love of particularity both in analysis and description, and
to pursue every clue of thought and motive to its subtlest
involutions and most entangled ramifications. Their letters
to each other already printed illustrate vividly their con-
sciousness of such contrast, and constitute one of the most
interesting examples extant of the critical appreciation of
two gifted artists by each other. . . .

‘ It is not on points of style as such that the debate
between Henry James and Stevenson mainly turns, but
rather on the degree to which written narrative should seek
after pictorial effect and try to make visible to the mind’s
eye of the reader the material setting of the actions and
passions which it relates — should or should not, as Steven-
son phrases it, appeal to the optic nerve. “ Death to the
optic nerve,” I find him crymg once in reply to his corre-
spondent’s petition for its indulgence ; and again, “ War
to the adjective ” ; and again, “ How to get over, how to
escape from, the besotting particularity of fiction. Roland
approadied the house ; it had green doors and window
blmds ; and there was a scraper on the upper step. To
hell with Roland and the scraper ! ” James on the other
hand pleads earnestly for that satisfaction of the visual
imagination which Stevenson would refuse it.’

The only letter from Colvin to myself that I can find
bears upon the passage just quoted. The date is October
21, 1923, and the reference at the beginning is to Dean
Hole’s LMe Tow in Ireland, 1859, which he had expressed
a widi to read again and which I was fortunate to be able
to find for him : ‘ When a packet came on Thursday
addressed in a well-known handwriting, I made several
guesses at what it was likely to contain, but never thought
of my old beloved book of John Leech’s Irish picture which

272 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

I used to pore and chuckle over sixty — yes, just fuUy sixty
— years ago. It is a real ]oy to possess it again, and a
double joy considering whence it comes. How on earth
did you manage to pick up a copy of the first edition — I
shouldn't have cared a quarter as much for the reprint —
in no time like that ? I can’t say thank-you warmly
enough.

‘ We are both keeping up after a fashion, though some-
thing of wrecks through having gone yesterday to the
mildest of picture-shows — ^the O. W. S. [the Old Water-
Colour Society], on a public day, and on my part also
through having ground painfully (but I am hoping success-
fully) out of myself a comparison and contrast of R. L. S.
and Henry James, by way of introduction to the letters of
Mrs. R. L. S. in the Empire Review and ScribfCer's.’

Several of Henry James’s letters to Colvin are printed m
the two volumes of his correspondence issued in 1920. Those
which foUow are new.

The first, undated, belongs to 1887. It refers to the
Stevensons’ South Sea plans . ‘ What good news (except
of poor Mrs. S.’s secousse) & how reassuring, every way,
about those dear people. What a gallant httle letter she
writes — & what a gallant little woman ! They are a
romantic lot — & I feel delight in them : with their plans
for the Pacific & Japan ! May Louis carry them out &
bring back things that the world won’t willingly let die ! ’

In March 1889 when Colvin was ill in Paris : ‘ This is so
little a note of business, or of any practical commerce, that
I diall be distressed if you take the trouble even to answer
it. It is only a retarded expression of interest in the
circumstances of your too long absence, which I have had
it at heart, always ineffectually, a dozen times, to give. It
is only when I hear that you judge yourself better that I
face the very gratified satisfaction I should have had in
telling in how friendly & troubled a spirit I participated in
your illness. People suffer & struggle, & we don’t say
things, & opportunities go, & S3mipathy is obscured — but

HENRY JAMES 273

let me at least give you a cordial sign, from city to city,
with eve^y wish for the fullest success of your present
business.

‘ Many thanks for Mrs. Fanny’s very natural & interest-
ing letter — doubly refreshing after her long silence. I wish
however, she generalised more, that is would give fewer
“ nigger ” details & more white ones. Yet those about
Louis’s wondrous lustiness are, after all, white enough. In
the face of such facts how can one grudge his really limn^
— with such an apparent plenitude of physical life, no
matter how literature suffers ? Oh yes, I ’m afraid it must
suffer, it can’t help it. But we must change our point of
view, to be thankful for what survives, what he can still
give us. After all he has hien de talent ' I have a little
note from him also — ^but very, very casual, & not worth
passing on to you. I am much touched by Mrs. Fanny’s
good message.’

* Tfegenna Castle Hotels St Ives, Aug. 1894.

‘ My dear Colvin, — It is doubly pleasant to hear from
you when you are accompanied by a letter from R. L. S. —
or from R. L. S. when he is escorted by a letter from you.
The Samoan epistle requires, I am sorry to say, as much
salt as possible to give it savour of satisfactory good spirits.
He writes mainly — indeed exclusively — of an excursion he
had taken in an English war ship and of the pleasure he
had had in her officers ; but literally not a word of anjdhing
else save that he was bad in the head and languid in the
heart. This was a mood, I take it— -he says himsdf it
would probably hft at any hour ; but it effectually curtains
off, in the letter, everything else one wanted to know. I
shall be as conununicate as possible in reply — to heap coals
on his head. Meanwhile direct word from him gives
me joy, as hinting that he hasn’t forgotten a feBow — or
sacrificed one wholly to cannibal frienddiips. I take
comfort in the glhnpse you give me of your own recreations
and refreshments: barring the gaudy duchess (whom I
s

274 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

don’t know) they sound innocuous and natural. I don’t
know Lady Agnew either (save, I think, for a single meeting
in Sargent’s charming picture) : I “ know ” all the while
fewer and fewer people. But I rejoice in all you know,
especially when they help to see you through dull German
moments. My own recollections of such moments go back
to long past years, but with a very kmd remembrance (as
to the only 2 or 3 Bader I know) of something summery
and woodsy and wholesome in the ordeal.

' I have been 10 days at this place — almost my first
vision of Cornwall and its meagre but almost elegant charm
— and have taken some long strolls over moors and diSs
and bogs and briars with my neighbour Leslie Stephen.
The bathing and the gorse are quite royal, and when the
day is decent the sea is chrysoprase — or .something of
that sort — and I presently depart for regions as yet un-
determined. I haven’t such sumptuous alternatives as
you ; I only long to be warm — a luxury this season quite
denies one. It ’s called “ relaxmg ” — ^but would that it
were ! Alas, the English summer 1 If you do come back
to the New Forest, I pray it be weak and indulgent to you.
I aspire to keep away from London till October ist, but
stress of temperature may easily chase me home ; in which
case I shall knock at your door. I have seen no one for
weeks (save my friends the Stephens here) in spite of some
da3rs lately passed at the sweet Torquay — ^where I did see
my host, the gentle W. E. Norris. There is a blessed absence
of news of anything having happened to anyone. Absit
omen 1 Stia bene. — Yours evermore,

‘ Henry James

‘P.S. — Lest this should reach your hotel after your
departure, I cautiously send it to the Museum.’ ^

* 2 Welhngton Crescent, Ramsgate, Thursday,

‘ My dear Colvin, — I have my apparent bad manners
to you much on my conscience, but please believe ist that

^ In tlie Fxtzwiliiam Museum,

HENKY J4MES

FROM THE PAINTING BY JOHN S SARGENT, R A , IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

HENRY JAMES 275

my motives have been pure and high m surrendering to
them when further struggle was hopeless, and 2nd that it
has been a part of the same unwilling servitude to have
been unable to address you an earher explanation. The
last time I saw you (just after my return from abroad) you
kindly asked me to come and see you and listen to some
portions of the particularly mteresting and mtimate last
communications from R. L. S. I promised myself this
extreme luxury — ^but I reckoned without the deluge. The
deluge came in the form of an hourly more and more im-
possible London, from which after much vain floundering
I sought refuge m this ridiculous ark. Here I have been,
trying to do my work and mind my business ever since.
Therefore I have been particularly out of hail of Samoa.
Samoa and Ramsgate — what would the Idander think of
me ? Tell it not at Vailima ! C’est four vous dtre that
I shall knock at your door as soon as I return to London,
which, alas, won’t happen till this month raves itself out.
Meanwhile I know that you stand as a rock in the uproar.

I hope the rock has human shape and satisfactions, however.
Will you commend me very kindly to Mrs. Sitwell, not
apropos of rocks ? I haven’t, to my loss, seen her for ages.
Don’t think of answering this, which is nothing but your
strict due ; and believe me, — yours always,

‘ Henry James ' *

Dated August 30, 1895 : ' I am touched by the liberality
of your letter, diamed by its humanity, diarmed by its
contents, & altogether delighted to get news of you. I had
had a letter from Graham Balfour, but your own is con-
siderably more vivid. It ’s particiflarly delightful to hear
that Buxton heals & helevates you: I am reassured at
having so good a word for the place. A friend of mine
(W. E. Norris of Torquay— still there, I suppose, or at any
rate for the last month) wrote me pis que fendre of it. . . .
When / go (I shall end there, I feel), I shall leap from peak

^ In the FitzwiUiam Museum*

276 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

to peak of the hiUs, even if the effort terminates my shrunken
existence. I wish we might leap together. But somehow
we never do. I return next week to Torquay, where before
my present mcarceration, of too many days, in town, I spent
some time. I hke the emptiness & prettiness, & soothing-
ness of it immensely, but I fear I have no present prospect
of becoming even a householder there. /^Even if I did, on
a tmy scale, I shouldn’t give up my London quarters.
More before I arrive. London, thank God, a desert with
lovely days & loveher nights. I may not return to it till
Nov. ist.’

On December 26, 1895 : ' Don’t think me a monster of
unsociability, of unfriendship, if I tell you the truth on
the question of accepting your hospitable invitation for
Monday. The great dining-out business has lately reached
a point with me at which I have felt that something must
be done — that I must in other words pull up. I have been
doing it nightly ever since Nov. ist, & it has left me with
such arrears of occupation on my hands that it is impera-
tive for me to try & use a few evenings to catch up. I am
therefore accepting no invitations for the present — ^having
got aU the last but one well behind me. This is the plain
unvarnished tale that I let loose at you instead of grace-
fully romancing about another engagement. Alas, “ Alas ”
is hjrpocritical ! what I really mean is that Ixan never dine
out any more at all 1 It has come to the question of that
or leaving London, & I must try that first. It is heroic &
really tests me, to have to take you so early in the period.’

To Mrs. SitweU, after meeting Mrs. R. L. Stevenson in
London, May 28, 1898 : ‘ I want to talk with you of those
people — ^who are very touching & interesting to me : Fanny
S. so fine, in her way, & so almost putting — dimly — ^the
other there between. She is like an old grizzled lioness —
or resignedly captive South-sea Chieftainess.’

From Rome, June 4, 1899 : ‘ I have been away from
England (the country 1 ) since the beginning of March & am
hoinesick now & eager to get back ; but circumstances here.

HENRY JAMES 277

have still their hand upon me, & I am (ergo) going tomorrow,
for 3 of 4 days to Manon Crawford at Sorrento, Then I
push back to Florence for 10 days, Turin, Paris &c., &
Rye — ^in which latter place I shall crouch so toilingly &
workingly & unsociably that to leave it again soon will go
hard with me — only I must go, on some business, up to
town. I win theif notify you promptly & we must indeed
have the good talk you speak of. You can’t desire it more
than I — & you must have much to tell me. I ’m intensely
void of any London or personal — other-personal news ; &
there are things I do want so to know. I hope health,
deep, work, book, & everything m general are well with
you. I find R. L. S. in Scribner’s delightful, but can’t forgive
the beggarly brevity of their snippets. . . ,

‘ Rome is not & empty & pleasant — ^the emptiness peopled
by a charming soft wind-stir & cool nights — a really happy
time to be here. I 've been here a month — ^more — & was
a month in Venice — ^besides other times elsewhere. The
H[umphry] Wards have delightful ViUa Barbni. at C.
Gandoho — & I just spent 4 or 5 picturesquissimo days there.
She is writing an “ Italian ” novel — & A. Sterner is here for
the pictorial embellishments. There axe likewise just now
thrillingnesses going on in the Forum — ^which I will tell
you of — for I too shall have gossip. Heaven speed our
exchange of it,"

The next letter followed upon Colvin’s decision not to
write the official Life of Stevenson,

To Colvin. From Rye, September 27, 1899 : ‘ I diall
tell you better than I can do here, when we meet, that I
really rejoice in your renouncement, ... It was an im-
possible business to my sense, & an impossible relation, & if
I had been nearer to you earlier in the whole history (the
best yeafs of it,) I should have taken the liberty of advising
you in that sense. It is, roughly speaking, because I can’t
but rionsider that with your admirable D.N.B. artide, the
Vailima Letters and the so abundantly pacsonal & auto-
biographic new volume (with aE your notes) Louis (the

278 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

most self-recording, into the bargain, of aU wnters) has
been, Avith all respect, sufficiently biographised. 'Every-
thing that has been done is a massive monument ; the
Edinburgh edition is itself essentially that ; & your hand
is, intensely, in all. Requiescat ! There ! ’

Colvin had written the article on Stevenson in the Dic-
tionary of National Biography, to which*" he was a valued
contributor.

From Rye [1899], referring to the first edition of Steven-
son’s Letters, which Colvin edited — in proof. To Colvin : ‘ I
got back here only Saturday night — kept in town by much
complication & anxiety ; & I find the two packets (volumes,)
of R. L. S. sheets very safe & sound for which many thanks.
I had to spend (sick with a vile cold) all yesterday, writing
accumulated letters ; & haven’t yet had time £0 read your
introduction. — Afternoon. I have, now, had time ; have
read it, & greatly congratulate you on it. A very difficult
thing to do — I mean to forediorten a figure of so many
attitudes & yet touch on all (represent all,) of them ; & you
have excellently done it, & been vivid & temperate at once.
I shall write my article on the book as soon as ever I can —
but don’t quite know where it will appear : I shld. say in N.
American Review for sure, were it not that I think they
may there already have engaged for one.’

From Rye, November 18, 1899, on receipt* of the edition
of Stevenson’s Letters in book form. To Colvin : ‘ I ought
already to have signified to you my pride & pleasure in
receiving the 2 vols. of the I^etters. What a beautiful &
lordly book ! It is precisely because I have been occupied
in saying that, these last 3 or 4 days, that I have left myself
time for nothing else. I have done for the January no.
of the North American Review such an article as I could,
under pressure of some haste.’

To Colvin. From Rye, January 26, 1900; ‘Please
don’t consider my delay in thankiag you for your letter
about my R. L. S. in the N.A.R. due to any failure -of
exiieme pleasure in receiving. It has all been quite other

HENRY JAMES 279

frustrations. I am infinitely gratified by what you say of
it — all the more that I but very barely indeed contented
myself. I don't know why I found him so dfficult — ^but I
did. Partly, doubtless, because he has been so much be-
written — in an inferior way. And I left unsaid all the
really critical (I mean closely analytic) things about his
talent, maimer, titerary idiosyncrasies, views &c. — ^the
thinp one would have hked most to say. But the condi-
tions of space, attention, in which any literary criticism
that is not the basest hand to mouth journalism can get
itsdf uttered at all now, are too beggarly for one’s courage.
You are quite right — ^wholly — about my being in places too
entortill 4 . I am always m places too entortill6 — & the
efiort of my scant remaimng years is to make the places
fewer.’

To Colvin. From Rye, December 28, 1903 : ‘ I rejoice
to hear of your betterment, and I hope Sandgate win
polish you off to the brightest, bravest shine. Likewise
I congratulate you on having found there quarters and
conditions that make these dark midwinter days more
bearable than your own monumental fireside, backgrounded
by the rich dim tapestry of Bloomsbury. Likewise, further-
more, there is a thrill m thinking of you both as so much
more of neighbours — except that you aren’t really— scarcdy
a wee bit. The Ashford station (of waits and draughts and
glooms, in the gaping voids of the winter train servi<») too
perversely and depressingly interpo^. Let me declare
that in spite of it, however, I would do everything possible
toward coming over to luncheon with you — to sleep wotddn*t
at present be possible ; but the conditions, as they press
upon me, diow as but meagrely favourable.

‘ It seems sadly crooked, fu^er, that H, G. W., who is
really a dear, and who is certainly, at the least, the leading
ornament of Sandgate, diould be away just at this time.
And I 'm sorry, tiaou^ not surprised, to hear of his errand.
He was here, for a day, with poor Gissing, a couple of years
ago, and the latter struck me then as quite particularly

28o the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

marked out for what is called in his and my profession an
unhappy ending. But what a brick is to go to his

aid. I doubt if he has another creature to look to — in the
way at any rate of a sane and sturdy man.'

The H. G. Wells’s then lived at Sandgate. George Gissing
the novelist was ill at St. Jean de Luz, and Mr. Wells, one
of his truest friends, had gone to be with Turn. As a matter
of fact he died on the day on which Henry James wrote this
letter.

' November 6th, Lamb House, Rye, Sussex,

‘My dear Colvin, — There are stupid reasons — ^but I
won’t trouble you with them — ^why I have suffered two or
three days to elapse since seeing m the Times that you had
somdiow met with (what sounds like) a rather grave acci-
dent. My immediate impulse was to write to you, but we
live in a day m which one is always writing and in which
immediacy therefore comes off as it can. The worst is
that I have thus taken time to worry and imagine and
think thoughts — one of which is that you are perhaps in
dire discomfort and pain. And though this makes me say •
“ Ain’t I now gladder than ever of that affair in the Maryle-
bone Road last summer and above all won’t he be ? ” even
this but makes me feel that there axe two of you there to
be concerned in the matter, and I think of you both as
knocked down or run over, or whatever the horrid mis-
chance may have been. You are neither of you to take
any trouble to have me told, for I of course know that you
will have been dduged with the letters which at present
add a horror to misfortune. But you are to take this for
a sign of tender interest, as sincere as it is, alas, helpless.
I can’t even come to see you — so far as you are accessible
to such demonstrations. By the time I shall be able to
you will be whole and happy again, for I remain here till
afto: Christmas, and I hope with aU my heart that your con-
finement win be a very short affair. I have thought of you
both so often since Marylebone, and with so vivid a sense
of what Marylebone had done for your happiness, that this

HENRY JAMES 281

in a manner but seems an intensification of that oppor-
tunity— that is of my opportumty to say to myself very
grimly and blankly : “ Who will be beautifully and ex-
quisitely at your side when you break your leg, or worse ? ”
I turn from that grey picture to the majestic Monument
and seem to see it turn ruddy and cosy in the November
dusk, so that I can at last wonder if an3d:hing worse has
happened to you than the fancy to refine a httle upon your
advantages — that is upon your sense of felicity. But
don’t refine all the rest of us wholly away, and don’t be any
the more interestingly the worse for your midiap than you
can possibly help. Please think of me, both, as full of
afiectionate participation, and beheve me, — Yours very
constantly, Henry James ' ^

Colvin had had an accident in which his leg was broken ;
and though it was soon mended, he always afterwards
walked with a shght limp.

To Mrs. Sitwell, referring to an article on Stevenson, which
he had written. From Rye, January 27, 1900 : “ It gives
me pleasure — ^much — ^that you who knew the dear being
from so early & so well — should care for what so late a
comer as I say — couid say, about him. I did it in a ham-
pered sort of way — ^but if I did it at all I feel a pious joy —
only also a kmd of sadness in having finished & put from
me one’s last utterance about him. I dian’t ever make
another— & it ’s like leaving hun & breaking off. Of such
a texture is our life & our feelings. I am very homesick
for town, & shall not again— between November & April—
hibernate amid the pure dements. I pine for the sound of
the busses and the colour of the jars at night in the chemists’
windows.’

No date. Love of London again : ‘ I do yhoHy agree
with you as to the preferability of London when nature is
one waterspout that I quit it almost with tears even for
so brief a period— it ’s the Ark in the Dduge.’

1 In tlie Fitzwilliam Museum*

282 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

No date. A word for the country : ‘ Thanks for your good
wishes in the matter of the ministrations of Pye Smith. I am
much better, mainly, — but really think it less Pye than Rye,
than, in short, the absence of Pie : i.e. the iimocent country
hfe, the no Dinners, the plain living & high thinking.’

To Mrs. Sitwell. From Rye, September 25, 1900 : ‘ Very
remote & romantic you soimd to me all, & rusticating in
conditions of ideal irregularity ; by which I mean nothing
worse than that if one has a house, in a little south-coast
prosy town, on one’s back, a pang of envy seizes at the
image of far-away nests in the northern heather, impro-
vised haunts of the eagle & the grouse ! My ornithology
may be wrong, but my vision I feel is roughly true. I greet
very cordially both your comrades & send them hvely con-
gratulations on each other & on you. Tell Col"^ from me,
please, that I encountered him — his Doppelganger — to-day,
as it oddly happened, at the good bicycle-man’s of this
place, in the shape of a gentleman so startlingly & utterly
& completely resembling him in every partic^r of face
& form that it constituted the strongest approach to identity
(through simdanty) that I ’ve ever encountered. He was
cycling through & having a repair done, & while he waited,
& I waited, I couldn’t help asking him if by chance there
was any one he had ever been taken for. He said No —
with a good conscience apparently — & left 'me to marvel
at the truth of my favourite theory — that nobody ever
observes anjrthing : nobody but me ! ’

Finally there is this letter written to Colvin while he was
at work preparing the four-volume edition of Stevenson’s
Letters, in which there were many new ones, and with which
the Vatlima Letters were merged. James had been adced
for permission to include some addressed to him.

‘25 Irving St., Cambridge, Mass., U.SA.,
‘Jan: 5:1911,

My dear Colvin,— I am delighted exceedingly to find
myself again in communication with you, however belatedly

HENRY JAMES 283

— & I feax even this response to your so interesting letter
with thS R. L. S. question will seem to you tardy indeed.
I have such arrears of information to make up in the way
of reporting of myself that the mere vision frightens me
off that ground — all the more that I can’t report of myself
now even if I would — I mean by reason of the fact that my
long & difficult convalescence from a most damnable &
distressful illness is in itself too subject to fluctuation —
frustration, & that the slow, stiff, weary chmb updiill has
slips & retrogressions that often belie my hopes, as well, I
hasten to add, as advances or recuperations that frequently
reassure my fears. I have had, alas, a hideous, a terrible,
tragic fear — & have been in this appalling country (as my
exasperated sensibility forces me to feel it) since August
last. I have just taken my passage to England again — but
only for June 14th, so that I have a terrible bit yet to wait.
Meantime the sorest homesickness, the sharpest pangs of
the exile, will be my daily portion — & yet I have reasons
for remaining that make that anguish a matter of com-
parative indifference to me. I cling to this particular roof
tree (my beloved brother’s) in order to hold fast dightly
the longer to his cheridied shade, & to be with my admir-
able sister-in-law & my so interesting & delightful nephews
and niece {4 in all & the youngest aetatis 19) ; they clinging
also as closely *to me & constituting almost the only society
for which I am just now fit. The two Louis letters of which
you send me copies come back to me from so far off like
small pale fluttering ghosts & fill me with a thrill of tender-
ness. Use them by all means — they deserve immortaliaa-
tion, & oh do indeed let me have the originals & the other
originals, as soon as I get home. The SoluHon, alluded to
in one of the notes, is sunply the title of a little did tale of
mine, of years agone, publMied at that time in some peri-
odical & reprinted in a Macmillan volume that had for its
designation The Lesson of the Master — the ist story of J
a dozen. (It is not included in the quasi-collected editions
of my products, but perhaps wiU be in some supplementary

284 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

volume.) Fanny S. will be a bigger fool than I ever took
her for if she resents the lively description of their domestic
broil. It helps to commemorate her & makes her interest-
ing — & just so, I feel sure, she wiU rejoice.

‘ By the same token don’t hesitate to print the passage
about Meredith tel quel — cleaving the “ humbugging ” un-
touched. The word isn’t invidiously i^ut pictoriaJly &
caressmgly used — as with a rich, or vague, loose synthetic
suggestion. Who in the world is there to-day to complain
of it? Voim’

' Here,’ wrote Stevenson in the Union Club at Sydney
on February 19, 1890, ‘m this excellent civilised, antipodal
club smoking-room, I have just read the first part of your
Solution. Dear Henry James, it is an exquisite art ; do
not be troubled by the shadows of your French competitors :
not one, not de Maupassant, could have done a thing more
clean and fine ; dry in touch, but the atmosphere (as in a
fine summer sunset) rich with colour and with perfume. . . .’

The other reference is to the letter from Stevenson written
at Skerryvore on January 1887. This is the passage : ‘ My
wife is peepy and dowie : two Scotch expressions with which
I wiU leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation for my
poetical works. She is a woman (as you know) not without
art : the art of extracting the gloom of the eclipse from
sunshine ; and die has recently laboured in this field not
without success or (as we used to say) not without a blessing.
It is strange : “ we fell out, my wife and I ” the other night ;
she tackled me savagely for being a canary-bird ; I replied
(bleatingly) protesting that there was no use in turning life
into King Lear ; presently it was discovered that there were
two dead combatants upon the field, each slain by an arrow
of the truth, and we tenderly carried ofi eadi other’s corpses.
Here is a little comedy for Henry James to write ! the
beauty was each thought the other quite rmscathed at
first. But we had dealt shrewd stabs. . . .’

•This is the beginning of Stevenson’s letter about Meredith :
Sarknac Lake, March 1888. ‘My dear delightful James,

HENRY JAMES 285

— ^To quote your heading to my wife, I think no man
writes s® elegant a letter, I am sure none so kmd, unless it
be Colvin, and there is more of the stem parent about him.
I was vexed at your account of my admired Meredith : I
widi I couldgoandseehun ; as it is I will try to write; and
yet (do you imderstand me ?) there is something m that
potent, genialisch affectation that puts one on the strain
even to address him in a letter. He is not an easy man
to be yourself with: there is so much of him, and the
veracity and the high athletic intellectual humbug are so
intermixed.’

CHAPTER XX

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT

1903-1912

All obstacles being cleared away, the Colvins announced,
in 1903, their forthcoming wedding, and I find some letters
bearing upon the news. Thus, Henry James wrote, in
April : —

‘ The Reform Club, April 2gth, 1903.

‘ Dear Mrs. Sitwell, — How charming & interesting your
note, & how deeply touched I feel at having your news from
you in this delightful way. It gives me the greatest pleasure
& I very affectionately congratulate you both. Besides
being good, your intention is beautiful, which good inten-
tions always aren’t. And it has a noble poetic justice, in
which there is a dignity matching even with that of the
Monument. You talk of the crown of your romance coming
late, but what do you say to the total absence (at the same

lateness) of all crowns whatever, whether of romance or
of anything else ? — ^which is the chill grey solitary portion

of your faithful old friend.

‘Henry James

‘ P.S. — Please give my particular love to S. C., as you will
see him before I have the chance to give him the very con-
secrating handdiake — as to my sympathy— that I am
keeping for him.’

And again in July, to Colvin : ‘ I am venturing to send
you, & to send Mrs. Sitwell as conjomed with you, & on
the occasion of that conjunction, a very modest little token
of' old friaidship & affectionate participation, in the form
286

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT 287

of a diminutive {very) silver salver, big enough to hold a
glass 03^ wine or a vase of flowers. The packet goes to you
with my name on it somewhere & carries you both the
dearest benediction of yours very constantly,

‘ Henry James '

From George Meredith : —

•June 18, 1903, Box Hill, Dork%ng.

‘My dear Sidney Colvin, — This is your birthday, &
you are on the eve of a happier day. It could not have
been better determined by both parties for the satisfaction
of their friends. You seem to be sure of such happiness as
the world can give — & that, as you have the wisdom to
reflect, is as much as we have a right to claim.

‘ I have not touched my pen for weeks, & I write first to
you. Your§ heartily, — ^With love to the lady,

‘ George Meredith '

Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, sent as
a wedding present Cunningham’s Lives of the Painters, and
with it a note : ' There is something in a life-long romance
which is so noble & beautiful that everyone must catdi
some hght & inspiration from realising that such good things
are in the world. I hoped it might have been a prettier
first Rdition that I was sending you. I am taking it to the
post through the lanes full of birds & flowering bushes.’

From the late Edmund Gosse, to Mrs. Sitwell : —

‘May Bay,

' 17 Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park, N.W,, 1903.

‘ My dear Friend, — We are wondering and discussing
whether we might be indiscreet, & dare to congratulate
S. C., if not you, — ^when your most delightful letter arrived.
For a Little White Bird that happaied to have been hopping
on the Axchiepiscopal luncheon-table, and overheard an
indiscreticm, had twittered it to us several days ago in
strictest confidence. (I hope you adnure my rococo style,
the consequence of Emotion ?}

288 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

' You do not, I hope, need to be told how very, very gkd
we are that you both have been so natural and sensible
and comfortable as to take this wise, graceful step. Won't
it be delightful never any more to have to say “ good-bye ”
to another ? “ And they shall go no more out ” — there is
such a sense of eucharist in that. I am writing you such
a poor, incoherent note, because I want y possible to catch
the post. But why aren’t you going to be married this very
month of May ? Why wait for July ? I am all against
useless waitings. — Yours most sincerely, and in great joy,

‘Edmund G.’

From the author of Red Pottage : —

* Preshaw, Bishop s-Waltham, Hampshire, May and [1903]

‘My dear dear Mr. Colvin, — I am so glad, I have
just heard from Mrs. Sitwell.

* I forhd you to answer this. I shall have two friends at
the Museum now instead of one.

‘ You once told me that I had a miserably small vocabu-
lary, because I owned when I was iH I could only say Oh !
Oh ! all the time. Now I can only say I am so glad, I

™ “ gM-Yoiix friend, . Choimondei,ey •

From G. K. C. : —

' 60 Overstrcmd Mansions, Battersea Park [1903]

‘ Dear Mr. Colvin, — ^Things do sometimes occur in this
world so beautiful and sensible that in thmldng or speaking
of them one forgets all about oneself. In the reality in-
duced by my genuine feeling I will not conceal from myself
or you that I have long been afraid that I have from time
to time distressed you, both by things due to my detestable
negligence & by other thinp which I really could not have
avoided. But the news I have just heard about you is the
kind of thing that in my eyes maies my short-comings quite
as microscopic & irrelevant as my merits. I have as much
right to look on at your new arrangements with delight as
a criminal has to admire a sunset. —

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT

2Sg

' I will not say anything more about yourself or Mrs.
SitweU, 'because congratulations upon these real things
always seem to me to be quite unsuited to this nasty &
elegant language in which we write letters. If we could
write a page of very exquisite blank verse, it noight be all
right, or erect an altar and slaughter a thousand oxen. As
a milder form of bftmt-offering, the only thing that occurs
to me is to send you the copy of the Browning I had long
marked off for you. Of what I owe you in that connection
I need not speak. You will, I think, find that in the later
part your most generous suggestions have borne fruit : the
earlier part, I am sorry to say, had gone to Macmillan’s, just
too soon to be recalled or revised.

‘ I think it must be something atmospheric connected
with the news about you that has kept me reading Across
the Plains for hours when I ought to have been working. —
Yours always most gratefuUy, . Chesterton ’

A third letter from Henry James brings us to the ceremony
itsdf : —

‘ Lamb House, Rye, Sussex. Sunday.

‘ My dear Colvin, — I am greatly touched by your letter.
Most mdubitably will I, & with joy, come up for 12.30, on
Tuesday, at S._ Marylebone Church, & for the G. Central
Hotel afterward. I thank you much, both, for giving me
this chance to testify to the faithful allegiance of yours
always, Henry James ’

From an article by Mrs. W. K. Clifford in The Bookman
for April 1928, I take, by permission, her description of
the wedding and its preparation ; ‘ The bleak house took
on fredi life, new friends and old gathered round them and
wedding presents poured ia. The marriage itsdf was a
very quiet almost secret affair ; only half a dozen people
knew the exact time and day. It took place in Maryle-
bone Church, where two other great lovers, the Brownings
— ^they had both known Browning intimatdy— had been

T

^0 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

married in tlie years long gone. It was a fine mor ning , but
dull and grey with not a hint of sunshine. We were told to
take ourselves at half-past twelve to the side door of the
church. I met Henry James on the doorstep, for we were
both invited ; we entered together to find beautiful floral
decorations : “ Are these for Mr. Colvin's wedding? ” Henry
James asked the verger. He was answered with a snort
and — " No ; they are for a fashionable wedding at half-past
two.” The little group consisted of the Biriiop who married
them, bnde and bridegroom of course, her greatest friend
Mrs. Babmgton (who was appropriately Louis Stevenson’s
cousin), his greatest friend Basil Champneys, Henry James
and m37self. A favourite niece was the only other witness,
but she sat far down in the church and did not in any way
join the wedding party ; she had perhaps stolen in unawares,
for she vanished quickly.

‘ When the ceremony was over we were asked to take
ourselves to the Great Central Hotel, a quarter of a mile
off, but not in a group lest anyone should wonder what it
meant. So we walked there on different sides of the way,
though no one would have suspected six sedate middle-
agers, of course in everyday clothes, of an 3 dhing unusual.
We sauntered casually into the hotel, where a quiet little
luncheon party had been arranged. It was very quiet
indeed ; the Colvins were obviously full of happy embarrass-
ment ; the guests were afraid to laugh and spoke only in
low tones lest the waiter ^ould suspect it was a marriage
feast. We did not even drink their health tfll someone^,
Basil Champneys I think, suggested that it ought to be
done ; then a bottle of stfll white wine was brought, oxu:
glasses were fifled, and when the waiter was out of right
and hearing we drank to the bride and bridegroom with
little nods and whispers.

' In the afternoon they were to start for Porlock on their
hone3mioon. Henry James and I went to see them off
from Paddington. We were all standing by the carriage
door, smiling and happy, but low-toned and discreet — for

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT

291

the newly-maxried still maintamed their half-shy manner —
when suddenly along the platform came bounding a young
and beautiful figure in a red silk dress — one of the actresses
they had helped generously early in her career, who had
somehow heard of the aSair just in time. She stood no
nonsense but flung her arms round their necks and kissed
them both joyouaiy. They got mto their train and went
off beaming with delight.’

A few days later Henry James wrote thus : —

‘Lamh House, Rye, Sussex, July 14, 1903.

‘ Dear Mrs. Colvin, — I am immensely touched by yomr
remembrance of a far-off friend in the midst of aU the
isolating felicity that you describe, & that I can, through
aU this last , wondrous beauty of summer, easily constitute
for myself on your benignant diore. It gives me joy to
hear of your both being free of spirit and sense to grasp
at the happy days as they successively hover & as they (m
the manner of happy days) quite blandly melt. But draw
them out, & hold them tight, & keep in your hands as msmy
of the pieces as you can. I am preserving a good piece,
myself, as in lavender & tissue paper, of the — of our —
Marylebone Tuesday. Trust me for that. It has been hot
beastly summer here & propitious to garden life, but without
your woods, your immediate waters, your society (for eadfi
of each) or, above all, your happy interval in the fray.

I am obhged to go to town tomorrow for 3 da3rs, but don’t
count it as an interval. My nearest approach to one has
been the presence down here for this past Sunday of your
delightful young Irish fidend Jocel3m Persse. I feel as if
I QUghi^ 'to thank you for him. But the night wanes ; & I
am already thinking of the Bloomsbury sequd to the Maryle-
bone morning. I in a manner await you both again & am
yours very constantly, Henry James’

Among the letters is a considerable packet from Stephen
Phillips, in which, however, I find nothing that seems to
demand quotation. They are whoEy concerned with &e

292 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

work on which he was engaged, and are full of hopes
and plans and frustrations. Although covering 'several
years, they may fittingly be referred to at this point.
P hilli ps, whom few now remember, first attracted the
notice of readers of poetry with a slim paper-covered book
entitled Christ in Hades, in Elkin Mathews’ Shilling Series
m 1897. In the following year he published Poems, in
which was included ‘ Marpessa ’ and ‘ The Wife,’ the one
charged with sweetness and tenderness, and the other a
grimly realistic story of despair. Upon the Colvins these
works wrought marvellously, and they entertained and
made much of their young author, then in the thirties ; a
cousin of Colvin’s friend and colleague Laurence Binyon.
From l3?rical and reflective moods Phillips passed on to
dramatic, and gave the stage the splendour ahd terror of
Herod and the wistful beauty of Paolo and Francesca, These
both increased his fame and the Colvins’ fervour. The
intensity of the lovers’ passion in Paolo and Francesca stirred
Lady Colvm to her depths, while Colvin rejoiced in the good
fortune that had brought poetry back to the stage.

There is no doubt that emotion got the better of judg-
ment and that their praises of Phillips sounded extrava-
gant ; none the less, the excess was a defect of a fine quality,
and no one could have foreseen how unfit Phillips was
to carry adulation and success, and how rapid would be
his decline.

After Phillips’s untimely death in 1915, aged fifty-one,
Colvin wrote for Humphry Ward’s English Poets his calm
opinion. I quote the opening passage : ' In regard to this
poet the critical pendulum had for some years before his
death swung sharply from the side of over-praise to that of
over-neglect. It will some day recover its equilibrium,
and Phillips will then be recognized as having belonged, by
the gift of passion (“ the all-in-all in poetry," as Lamb has
it), by natural largeness of style and pomp and mdody of
rhythm and diction, as well as by intensity of imagmative
vision in those fields where his imagination was really

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT

293

awake, to the great lineage and high tradition of English
poetry

And again of Phillips as a dramatist : ‘ It may justly
be argued that Phillips's aim in drama was intended to be
on Greek lines much rather than on Shakespearian : that
the intense, the Shakespearian individualization of char-
acters has been n« part of the aim, still less of the achieve-
ment, of tragic drama in some of the great literatures of
the world — it is not a capital element either in the Greek
drama or the classical French : and again, that rhetoric in
poetic drama there needs must be, and between the right
and appropriate rhetoric of a situation, when it is touched
with passion and imagination, as much of it in these plays
truly is, — between such rhetoric and truly great dramatic
poetry the line is difficult to draw, if it can be drawn at aU.’

There is little of special mterest to record at this time,
but I may say that one of the most eventful moments in
Colvin’s life was when he received, in 1907, the following
letter from Lord Curzon : —

‘ My dear Colvin, — As the new Chancellor of Oxford I
have the privilege of drawing up the list of Hon. Degrees to
be conferred at my Initiation on June 26. You are so
eminent in so many branches of Arts & Letters that I feel
that if I were^fortimate enough to persuade you to come I
should be conferring upon the University an honour greater
than any it could bestow.

' Will you then accept the Hon. Degree of D.Litt. at my
hands on that occasion ? — Yours sincerely,

‘ Curzon ’

Colvin naturally accepted, the honour being one that he
particularly valued, coming as it did from the other Uni-
versity. I find that he was also an Hon. LL,D. of St.
Andrews and ComKponding Member of the Institute of
France and the Royal Academy of Belgium. He was a
member of the Council of the Hellenic Society, the School
of Athens, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest

294 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

or Natural Beauty, and the National Art Collections Fund,
to which he left a legacy.

There is in Lord Curzon’s hand also this graceful invi-
tation to Hackwood a few years later : ‘ I have a few
people staying here tomorrow till Monday, and the idea has
suddenly come into my head — ^what a charming thing it
would be for me, for us, if perchance you were free and
would like a httle change to the country, and could be
persuaded to come down & join us.

‘ The suddenness and beauty of the idea must be held
to justify the extravagant shortness of the notice.’ ^

Two scraps from isolated letters may be inserted here.
This, from Mr. Rudyard Kipling ‘ I shall be very happy
to come if I am alive, but I fancy I shall be frozen dead in
another 48 hours. Never again will I spend another winter
in this accursed bucket-shop of a refrigerator called England.’

And this from Lord Milner, about his portrait by Theodore
Roussel, the artist who painted Colvin’s portrait for the
Savile Club : ‘ Personally I am quite unshaken about the
picture, only greatly disappomted for Roussel’s sake that
it has been so badly received in some quarters Some of
my personal friends have been the worst. They have not
even tried to understand what R. was trying to do. The
friend, who expects one portrait to represent you in aU the
aspects agreeable to him, and in no other, may be a treasure
as a friend, but as a critic of a work of art he is hopeless.’

Colvin’s name as a knight appeared in the New Year
Honours on January i, 1911. From the letters of felici-
tation I choose one from J. M. Barrie : not then Sir James,
and not then a member of the Order of Merit, as he now is

‘2 /an. igir,

‘ Dear Lady Colvin, — Another letter 1 But you must
not trouble to answer it. I can’t however resist writing to
congratulate you both, and to you in preference because I
can't to his face tell Colvin what I think of him. However,

^ In the Fitzwilham Mnsenm,

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT 295

to you I He is probably quite unaware that for many years
he has^added dignity to the calling of letters and that (as
I beheve) everyone who follows it holds him in honour. By
his fellows he is most admired — it is what everyone would
hke best. It has certainly been many a time a pleasant
thought to me that Sidney Colvin is . — Believe me always
very sincerely, J. M. Barrie'

In 1911 Colvin brought out a new four-volume edition of
Stevenson’s correspondence imder the title The Letiers of
Robert Louts Stevenson, in this work the VatUma Letters
being sorted in in their chronological order. In 1912 came
his retirement from the Museum, and this is the letter
written by Sir Frederic Kenyon on behalf of the Trustees
of the British Museum when that event occurred : —

‘British Museum, London, W.C., July 8 th, 1912.

‘ My dear Colvin, — ^The Trustees on Saturday desired
me to convey to you an expression of then: regret that your
connection with the Museum has been termmated by your
retirement, and of their cordial thanks to you for the
services which you have rendered to them and to the
Museum during the twenty-nine years that you have been
Keeper of the Department of Prmts and Drawings. The
great advance made by the Department during that period
is the best measure of the skill and judgment with which
it has been administered; and if the Print Room now
stands, as they believe it does, at the head of all such insti-
tutions in the world, they recognise that this is largely due
to the work of yourself and of those whom you have trained
and directed. They are aware that the Department has
owed many of its most important accessions to the liberality
of private donors, and they know that the extent of these
donations is due to the influence which you have personally
exercised in the interests of the Museum.

‘ The Trustees regret that the regulations with regard to
the age-limit should have necessitated your retirement
before the transference of the Print Department to its new

296 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

quarters ; but they hope that you may long have health
and strength to enjoy your freedom from official labours.
Believe me — Yours very sincerely,

' F. G. Kenyon ’

Colvin's retirement from the Museum was marked by a
banquet to him by his friends on November i, 1912, at
which Lord Crewe took the chair and the company was
representative of the literature, learning, and art of the day.
The principal speeches were made by Lord Crewe, Sir
(then Mr.) Austen Chamberlain, Sir Martin Conway, the
late Lord Moulton, and Sir (then Mr.) Robert Witt. Colvin's
own remarks, some of which, concerning Cambridge, I have
Already quoted, were perhaps a shade too literary for the
best oratory, but they do not read the less- pleasantly
for that,

Much that is in the speech as privately printed was not
spoken at all, owing to the passing of time ; and it was for
this reason, since the speech enunciated the credo of a
museum director and art critic, that Colvin circulated it
afterwards. Of museums he spoke thus : ' The great

problem of museum management is how to prevent the
treasures so gathered and set out from being dead things ;
how to arouse in those who come to see them a living sense
of what they are and mean. What can one do to awaken
the mind of the average man and woman to some dim per-
ception even of their surface qualities and significance —
let alone all that tremendous tale of skill and effort, of
human self-protection, self-help, and self-expression, of
tibe passion for perpetuity, of joy, devotion, and aspiration
that lies behind the surface ? The problem is no easy one.
One way at least is that we, their keepers and expounders,
should keepourown interest in them ever alive and enkindled
in ourselves, and never let the work lapse for us into a
matter of fiat drudgery and routine, like the drudgery and
routine of commonplace and less privileged professions,
Another way might be by greatly developing the system of

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT 297

oral exposition lately begun in the British Museum : I re-
member Sir William Harcourt, when he was Chancellor of
the Exchequer and would have had to provide the funds,
saying, wisely as I think, that he would like to see a specially
qualified cicerone-assistant attached to the staff of every
department.’

To the new devglopments in painting he came, by way of
answering the question. Who, should museums be weeded
out, would do the weeding ? ‘ Think,’ he said, ‘ of the

fluctuations of taste, and how one age despises the work of
one period of the past and the next age takes it into favour
again. The eighteenth century would cheerfully have
swept into the dust-bin most, if not aU, of the paintmgs
of the fourteenth and fifteenth. The nineteenth century
came and turned round and cherished them perhaps almost
too exclusively. The twentieth — ^who knows ? — ^may turn
round and despise them again. Take the present hour —
what violent conflicts of opimon surround us as to what is
worth doing m art and what posterity wiH value. The art
discussion and chatter of the day run all on post-impression-
ism — cubism — futurism. To some the products of these
theories are objects of mere derision and (fisgust. To others
they are big with the promise of a new birth of art. I wiU
own frankly that I am of the former persuasion. I do not
believe — I do mot find in other matters — that age has yet
fossilized my mind or ossified my S37mpathies. And for
some at least of the prophets of the new art-creeds — ^need
I name Mr. Roger Fry — I entertain such respect and affec-
tion as would make me try my very hardest to go along
with them. But I cannot. To me their doctrine seems
untenable in fact and logic, and their practice a redmtio ad
absurdum of their doctrine. This violent, forced simplifica-
tion, most remote from true simphcity ; this self-imposed
crudity and barbarity and puerility of pattern in line and
colour : this professed interpretation of natural appearances,
not in themselves but in their inner emotional significance,
by means of rude painted symbols which may be sinfierely

298 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

meant, but have the misfortune to be indistinguishable
from the daubings of incompetence or imposture, or even,
in some cases, of msanity— I cannot persuade myself to
find in these things seeds of regeneration, or an3rthing more
than fruits of the aberration of an horn’. As for those who
call themselves futurists, the arrogance of the name surely
tells us what to think of them. The hpuse of the future,
gentlemen, by which I mean the house of fame, to be built
by the memory and esteem of coming generations— that
mansion may be vast but will assuredly be crowded It
will not have room for many of us — even of so distinguished
a company as are here tonight assembled. Those who
think to storm it by a name, calling themselves futurists,
stripping themselves of the past, disowning and dishonour-
ing the past, knocking naked and self-disinherited at the
doors of the future — they, be sure, will fling themselves
against those doors in vain and drop unregarded, poor
ephemera, into the void.'

The peroration ran thus : ‘ I am what is called a free
man, and I hope to devote the rest of my days to the pursuit
of literature, from which destiny drew, or pushed, me away
nigh on forty years ago. Not that I am satisfied that either
museum work or literature was my true vocation. My
true vocation, I sometimes feel with conviction, was to be
a millionaire. I daresay stirrings towards the same career
have been felt by many of you. I fed convinced that none
of you would have adorned it as I should. What I am
thinking of is not a commonplace great fortune, but one of
the colossal sort that would enable a man to do and see done
on a great scale the things he really cared for. Had I such
a fortune. Sirs, you should see things hum along lines that
I believe most of you here present do care for as I care. You
dxould see great pictures from our private collections stream-
ing into Trafalgar Square instead of away beyond the seas.
You diould see the National Art Collections Fund glorioudy
endowed, and the National Trust for the preservation of
places of national beauty and historic interest enabled to

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT

299

secure for the community a number, ten times greater than
they can deal with now, of precious buildings and tracts and
breathing spaces of health and beauty You should see
sites of ancient civilization excavated by the dozen simul-
taneously, instead of slowly as now by ones and twos. . . .

‘ But these are day-dreams, inspired perhaps by the glow-
ing atmosphere «f this festivity. They will pass by
to-morrow, and I shall go back to my books, in hopes of
perhaps doing something yet, in my advancing years, that
shall make me more worthy of the kind thoughts you have
of me, and at any rate beyond measure touched and en-
couraged by those thoughts and by your expression of
them.’

Since Colvm m his speech referred to a contribution of
my own to "the bill of fare, I reproduce it here. The lines
were printed on the back of the card, and ran thus : —

' How unfamiliar Bloomsbury bas grown
Since Colvin left that comer house of stone
To which so many, mgh on thirty years.

Have earned manusenpts, and hopes, and fears.

Finding a welcome and encouragement
And faring forth divinely confident 1
How unfamiliar 1 nor can aught occur
To give us back its ancient character.

‘ Oneliook, if any one, is still to write:

The eulogy of cntics who incite ;

Who wait not till the enterpnse is done,

But seek young talent out and help it on ;

Ranking above appraisement at the end
The constant stimulus of fnend to fnend ;

Whose banner is disinterestedness ;

Whose chosen recompense, those friends’ success.

‘ And chief of such m these our latter days
Is he whom we are gathered here to praise.’

What I was tr3dng to express in verse Mr. Christopher
Moriey has said in prose. Speaking of the ‘ Monument,’
which he visited in 1911 at Colvin’s invitation, several

300 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

times, he recalls how himself when young ' looked with awe
upon his sacred relics of so many who had been until then
only wizard names. Those were happy days : there were
no wars, aU was fair that time could bring, and to sit and
talk with the gracious host and great gentleman who had
known Ruskm, Browning, Meredith, Stevenson, Hardy
... to hear first of all from him the name (even then, 1911,
not much known) of Joseph Conrad, this was the kmd of
escapade mto amazement that a young man does not forget.
Oh, a very sound thing for a very young acoljrte is that
sentiment of awe. One knew when one was near the
vibration of greatness.'

Colvin, as I have said, printed his speech in full, for
pnvate circulation, and sent copies not only to all his hosts
at the dinner but also to many absentees. Among these
were Dr. Butler, the Master of Trinity, and the Archbi^op
of Canterbury, a very old friend of both Colvin and Lady
Colvin. The Master wrote thus : —

‘November 23, 1912, Trinity Lodge, Cambridge.

‘ My dear Sir Sidney, — It is only to-day that I have
succeeded in giving myself the great pleasure of reading
your singularly eloquent speech. 1 really cannot think of
any speech in which so many gifted minds have been so
happily sketched for us — each sketch a real recognizable
Portrait. Perhaps your long life among Portraits may have
given you help and light in this direction !

‘ Among the many that have most come home to mysdf,
helping me to “ look at ” them again, and watch smile or
gleam or stammer, are Ruskin and Mat. Arnold and Jebb
and Thatcher and dear Henry Sidgwick. " A balanced
Ruskin, an unsupeiior Arnold ” are delightful incarnations
of the Unthinkable I

‘ I wish I could have heard the Speech, but we had a great
day here on Nov. ist, and I felt tied to my post. I think
no sentence would have made me both laugh and sympa-
thise more than the charming [illegible words] towards the

MARRIAGE AND RETIREMENT 301

bottom of page 15, where you reveal your “ true vocation.”
I remember once when I went into solitude for a few days at
the Bristol Hotel, Brighton, to get rid of a voiceless throat,
I spent the greater part of a happy walk towards Rotters'
Dean in going through a little disinterested meditation,
and thinking what I would do on Two Millions a Year !
O the many grand»schemes of Philanthropy that have been
rendered abortive because no Peabody or Carnegie was
telepathic enough to lay the first stone.

' We are expecting Lord Crewe here m about an hour. I
think I must question him about the Dinner and the Speech.
— Believe me to be very truly yours,

‘H. Montagu Butler’

And this is from the Primate : —

'Deo. 18, 1912, Old Palace, Canterbury.

' My dear Colvin, — I have been disgracefully remiss in
not thanking you more speedily for your kindness in send-
ing me the text of a speech marked by a range of knowledge,
a forcefulness of wit, and a power of hterary expression
which few could rival. Would that I had been among
those who listened to it. By some accident for which I
cannot account I heard nothing of the occasion until it
was too late.

‘ Your words about museum matters are of permanent
value. And now we shall await fredi output from your
brain & pen for the common good.

‘ With every highest & deepest good will to you & Lady
Colvin for Christmastide, I am — Vy truly yours,

'Randall Cantuar ’

The Colvins after mudb. search found a home that pleased
them at No. 35 Palace Garden Terrace, and there the rest
of their lives was spent, with an interval in the country
each summer.

CHAPTER XXI

JOSEPH CONRAD
1904-1924

So far as I can ascertain, Colvin and Conrad fust exchanged
letters in 1904, but the earliest letter in the L%fc and Letters,
edited by G. Jean Aubry, is dated April 28, 1905. Conrad
was then forty-seven, and had just finished Nostronio.
Colvin, for some months, had been urging the Stage Society
to produce Conrad’s play One Day More, and the following
letter (I am quoting only from those not already published)
refers to the cast. It is written from London : ' I remain
here bound fast by the necessities of dictation, which is the
only way, as I discover, to break the high wave of work
which threatens to swallow me up altogether.

‘ Reverting to the play. I imagine that the provisional
committee (including Miss Constance Collier) is much too
indulgent. Mr. Tree no doubt wUl show -himself more
severe; and I am willing (quite honestly) to admit the
justness of all his remarks — beforehand. I do not, even
in my thoughts, question your judgment and experience.
The only questions that arise are : Is the thing (so slight)
worth the labour— which is partly answered by the fact
of your interest ; next ; what of the Time (with a cap. T).
I am by no means sure that there is a playwright (let alone
a dramatist) in me.’

In another early letter, undated, Conrad expresses what he
feels about play-writing : ' As a matter of fact I feel on the
subject with you. And this is not because I 'vc no con-
ceptidn, ik> general U&e d nm, of what I ’d like to do on

SOS

JOSEPH CONRAD 303

the stage. I have that. But I have also a very dear per-
ception* of my innate clumsiness in carr3nng out an3rthing,
unless with much toil and trouble. Work has never been
to me a feast of cakes and ale.

‘ In this case I ’ve been hampered also by the particular
ignorance of the craft. Therefore I went straight ahead
catching the inspiration of the moment as it came for fear
that a more careful reflexion would bring me to absolute
inaction. The only thing I 've consciously looked to was
versimilitude of dialogue. And even there I 've an uneasy
suspicion of having failed.

‘ Not altogether, however, I suppose, since you think
the thing worth talking over. I assure you that if there
were no such being in the world as a theatrical manager
I would still be most eager to hear (and absorb) your
criticism.’

In June 1905 we have this . ‘ I repeat once more —
pray have no scruples in handling the play in the light of
your judgment. I could of course argue for days in defence
of everything I 've done, but I know also of what strange
illusions as to the portSe of his work every imaginative
writer is the prey. I am quite aware that it is quite in-
possible for me to look upon that one httle act inUUigmUy
— I mean in a detached manner. There would be always
the question (not of amour propre at all) but of feMng —
the feeling in which the play was conceived — in the way.
The md, is altogether tentative as it stands now ’

One Day More was performed on June 25. In August
1912 : ‘ Yes. We have the little car. It 's a worthy and
painstaking one-cylinder puffer which amuses us very
much ; but a journey of 80 miles is not to be undertaken
lightly on the back of that antiquity.

‘ I have been doing uncommonly badly since April last.
A most beggarly tale of pages ! And just now I feel out
of sorts— devil only knows why. However, one must go
on. Do or die. But at present I have no taste for either
alternative.’

304 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

On January 20, 1914 ; —

' My dear Colvin, — I Vc been celebrating the publica-
tion of Chance by a lit of gout which has kept me m bed
for several days ; or I would have written long before this
to teU you how much I appreciate your good letter and the
review in the Observer.

’ Indeed I can’t say much even yet. I am still muddled
and, frankly, unable to think from this horrible gout. But
I can feel (if I can’t express to any purpose) a profound
gratitude for what you have done for the book, and for ail
the body of my work, by your most friendly and discrimi-
nating review. I won’t say more just now but I hope
before long to thank you, in words if I can only find them,
for this fresh proof of your most prized good will. — Youis
ever, J. Conrad ’

‘ My warmest regards to Lady Colvin. That she should
have been interested in the book gives me the greatest
delight.’

The following passage is from Colvin’s review : * Criti-
cism has long ago, but popular favour hardly yet, fuUy
recognized the extraordinary power and value of the work
in tale, romance and remmiscence which Mr. Conrad has
been contributing to our literature in the last eighteen
years ; work which sets before us the fruits of a remarkable
experience enriched a himdredfold in the ripening light and
heat of imagination; work combmmg, as scaredy any
other in our time combines, the threefold powers of enthrall-
ing narrative, magically vital description and an un-
flagging subtlety and sanity of analytic character study ;
work, finally, distinguished by so resourceful a mastery of
Eig^sh speedi and style that we very rarely find ourselves
thinking, whether to admire or to condone, of the fact that
the writer is not English-bom.’

A year and a hadf later Conrad thanks Colvin for a
review, also in the Observer, of Victory ; ‘ You cannot doubt,
my dear friend and generous critic, that I appr«:iate pro-

JOSEPH CONRAD 305

foundly every line, every intention of your review- Many
thanks for all you found to say — for the warmth of your
praise and the really tender delicacy of your reservations.
I am touched when I think of you laying aside your work
and giving up your time and thought to mine. That in
itself I consider a very high recognition of my endeavours.

‘ I won't fill the ijaper this tune. It 's time for the post.
I ’ll only mention that the hook has made a good start,
11,000 copies having been sold in the first 3 days. A rather
•extraordinary success for — Yours ever,

' Joseph Conrad ’

The following passage, in August 1917, refers to a eulogy
that I cannot identify : ‘ I see that it is to your friendship
and to your authority I owe the (lavish ? — magnificent ? —
gorgeous ?) tribute from over the sea. You may be sure it
is very welcome. Authors, as you cannot but know, can
stand a lot of jam on their bread. And apart from that
I prize particularly every word said in favour of my
reminiscences.

‘ I think I '11 drop this enthusiastic young man a line.
But not yet, as I am in bed with some sort of internal dis-
turbance — and writing in bed even on an invalid table
worries and exasperates me beyond reason. I am a
ridiculous person,’

After telling of the way in which his elder son Borys was
bemg entertained by Americans while on leave in Paris,
Conrad adds: 'It strikes me I’ll have to be mighty civil to
a good many Americans after the War,'

In the following letter, also undated, we have, I think,
a for^ight of Colvin’s Memories and Notes, as first planned :

‘ My head is very full of the work we talked about the other
evening. My mind’s eye sees it in three vols. beautifully
printed, the grace and the earnestness of the near past
presented for us and our children with your fascinating
serenity of expression.’ ^ .

On January ao, 1920, just after Conrad’s return from* his
u

3o6 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

triumphant visit to America : ‘ My old friend the gout
has come along to keep me company. That devil took
lodgings in my wnst, has enlarged it considerably and is
■malfing himself at home mside in a way that causes me to
gn a5ih my teeth when I don't want to do it, I don’t want
to do anything. If you were to peep magically into my
study you would see me sitting absolutely motionless like
a crabbed, unasiatic-looking Buddha — and not even twirling
my thumbs — all day long.

‘ However, the last 3 days I 've managed to put in about
an hour a day pruning the text of The Rescue with the
utmost severity, I don't know when that work will be
published, and I am not much interested in it generally.
What however does interest me no end is your statement
about a forthcoming vol. of yours. I am more than delighted
to know that those most distmguished croquis des personnes
out of your past are going to be collected. In that good
company you enumerate, there will also be another homme
du monde of the widest sympathies and beautifully controlled
expression, scholar, artist, observer, judge of character and
devoted friend. You don’t name him ; but I think that
in that book where Ms name will only appear on the title-
page much wM be revealed to us of Sidney Colvin with
son iour d’esprit tres aviso et un peu mordant, and ex-
pressed with a sort of fascinating quietness? I have never
met before in anybody. I am so pleased you have made
up your mind ! I do really think too that the book may
very well turn out a succk de lihrairie, I won’t expound to
you my reasons for so tMnking, here and now, because of
“ lack of space.” But they are good, very good.’

On April 21, 1920 : ‘ I may safely say that this is the first
moment of moral and physical rehef I have tasted since
our return from Liverpool jtKt before Christmas. Perhaps
we both have " turned the corner ” now ! At any rate if
Jessie has done so I am likely to foUow ; — longo intervallo —
but still I will get round too, I think. I may tell you that
I feel very much ^aken physically. Mental effort costs

JOSEPH CONRAD 307

me more than it ought to, I fancy. I have done some work,
however-*-not of a very profitable kind tho’ — three prefaces for
my collected Edition. I have also finished a play — I don’t
know why. I mean I don’t know why I have done that
thing at aU, But it ’s done. I had also no end of a gnnd
over the text of The Rescue to make it fit for book-form.

‘ Heavens ! How Hiave slaved over that book ! That prose !

‘ And in this connection ; I hope, my dear Colvin, you
have understood that it is only absolute impossibility
which prevented me dedicating it to your wife I had
promised it {that particular book) to Penfield the last U.S.
Ambassador to the late Empire of the East, m the year
1914, in commemoration of my gratitude for his kindness
to us — a kindness which had every appearance of a Rescue.’

Jessie is Mrs. Conrad. The kindness of Mr. Penfield
was exercised in getting the Conrads out of Poland, where
they were bottled up at the outbreak of the War, and
restoring them to England.

Two undated scraps ; ‘ I have made an enthusiastic
note of your promise to read a little poetry with me when
you come to see us.

‘ I look upon the promise as no small favour, for you have
the gift of uttering winged words admirably. Admirably !

I 've heard you quote a few lines and it was enough to
make me, as it were, sit up inwardly at once.’

And • ‘ How extremely kind of you to think of sendmg me
the books. You are indeed a true friend. And what an
interesting selection.

‘ I do hope I will be able to put on if only a Jaeger boot
on Thursday. I hate going out in a doth gout-boot — it ’s
too early-Victorian for a common mortal. It was well
enough for Lord Palmerston.’

Aiter the receipt of Memories and Notes (in, however, not
three but a single volume) . —

‘ 1st Nov . 1921.

‘ My very dear Colvin, — ^The reading of Memories and '
Notes has been one continuous delight. As you know, I

3o8 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

have been privileged to see some of these papers even in
typescript — and some in their serial form. But the*qiiality
of their interest and freshness is of the kind that does not
perish m the reading and re-reading. I feel much honoured
by my presentation copy bearing corrections in tlio text
in your own handwriting.

' These detached pages have a singulrsily charming one-
ness of atmosphere — a touching serenity in their clear
light, and a classical simplicity of suggestive lines in por-
traiture and landscape which is most satisf5dng to one’s
tastes and one’s emotions. My warmest and most loving
congratulations on tlic effectiveness of your memory and
the sureness of every vital touch. Deare.st love to Lady
Colvin (who ought to be pleased with the marvellous glow
of the dedicatory preface) and to you from us both. — Ever
yours, Joseph Conrad ’

Conrad returns to Memories and Notes in his next letter,
with reference to the paper on Stevenson, which had
originally been given as a lecture : ‘ I have been deeply
moved in reading your lecture. If Stevenson was a lucky
man to have such friends as you, I may count my.sel£ as lucky
too — ^with less merit but the more gratitude for that un-
expected, unhoped-for good fortune. Infinite thanks for
the matter and the manner, for the honour of being placed,
in such generous spirit, near Stevenson — and for the choice
of the extract, which sturdy had been dictated by a
friendly care.'

This is the passage : ' Of those who had not begun to
publidi before he [R. L. S.] died, the man I ima^e him
calling for first of ah is the above-mentioned Mr. Conrad.
Some time about 1880-90 these two seafarers, the Polish
gentleman turned British merchant-skipper and the ocean-
loving author cruising far and wide in search of health,
might quite weE have met in life, only that the archipelago
Of Mr. Conrad’s chief experiences was the Malay, that of
Stevenson’s the Pol3meaan. Could my dream be fulfilled,

JOSEPH CONRAD IN 1924

I-KOM A IPHOTOcRAPK IN IHL POSSESSION OF MRS CONRAD, NOW FIRSX PUBLISHED

JOSEPH CONRAD 309

how they would delight m meeting now ! What endless
ocean "und island yams the two would exclxange ; how
happily they would debate the methods and achievements
of their common art ; and how difficult it would be to
part them ! As I let myself imagine such meeting, I know
not which of the two presences is the more real and near
to me, yours, my good friend Conrad, whom 1 hope and
mean to greet in the flesh to-morrow or the next day or the
next, or that of Stevenson, since my last sight of whom,
as he waved good-bye to me from the deck of the Ltiigaie
Hill, I know as a fact of arithmetic, but can in no other
sense reaiixe, that there has passed a speU of no less than
four-and-thirty years or the life-time of a whole generation.’

Conrad died in 1924, two days after Lady Colvin.

In the letters are constant references to Perceval Gibbon,
the novelist, and to his two little girls : such as, for instance,
this in 1918 : ‘ P. G. has seen me several times and asked
me to send to Lady Colvin and yourself his affectionate
regards. The poor man is not happy. He yearns for his
girls, whom he has not seen for three years. He is now in
the service of the Admiralty and has the rank of a Major of
Marines. I think he is doing very good work. He is off
to-morrow on a mission of 30 days to the French and Italian
Navy. He has learned Italian and acquired an immense
love for Italy, and he deeps with the Div. Com. under his
pillow.’

Here arc passages from Gibbon’s letters to Colvin. In
August 1912 : ‘ If I were to apologise for not writing sooner
in answer to your letter of July 19, it might suggest that
I had forgotten or neglected to do so. But it isn’t so.
Says I to myself, from time to time : “ No need to send
civil notes to a decent man like that. When it stops
raining— -if it ever does — something will happen and I'll
write and tell him about it.” But, dash it, sir, it hasn’t
stopped raining, and the only thing that has happened is
that I have bought a car— a real car — as the seller said, a
gentleman's car " — . Stop — I forgot. On the fourteenth

310 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

of this month, my wife, who went to bathe while I was away
for a walk, got out of her depth, caught cramp, *and was
narrowly saved from drowning by the only man within
earshot who was willing to risk his life. It really was a
near thing : I hate to think how near : and the rescue w'as
wen and gallantly done. W’hcn I went to the rescuer
afterwards to thank him, he said : “ Qh, please don't say
an 3 d:hing. I 've always wanted a chance to do something
like that.”

‘ A Mi. Robert Ross has written to me and given me the'
privilege of putting my name on the general committee for
a dinner to you in November — which 1 was delighted to do.'

Robert Ross, whose name will always be associated ivith
that of Oscar Wilde for his chivalrous loyalty to that
unfortunate man, had thrown himself into the project for
the banquet to Colvin.

Gibbon's next letter, from Starasagora in Bulgaria, in
December : ‘ It seems, after all, that 1 am going to mis-s
your dinner; I have no luck. I am here for the Daily
News at my former trade of war correspondent, and at this
moment am tied by the leg in this grievous Turkish town,
8o miles from the nearest fighting. It appears that Bul-
garia means to win or lose her war without publicity, as far
as she can ; at any rate, not one of us has yet heard a shot
fired. We are walking about in our breeches and gaiters,
slaving to get together items of news to supplement the
silly official “bulletins," which never admit a defeat or
even a large number of casualties. If I were you, I wouldn’t
bdieve too much of what I see in the newspapers from
Starasagora ; “ I works where it 's made.’’

‘ As to the dinner, I shan’t be there. Probably, if I have
luck, I shall be in the trenches before Adrianople. But
though I shall not drink to you nor applaud the speech that
praise you, my earnest friendship and sincere good wishes
are not the less yours.’

'Huee more brief extracts from Gibbon's letters : ‘ We
should have been in town with the babies, and rung you

JOSEPH CONRAD 311

up to ask if we might bring them round, long before now,
but f«r the “ weeping weather.” They came back from
Christmas with a pair of colds , my people, whom we had
been visiting, have a house which is a powerfully conceived
S 3 rstem of draughts ; and as the little devils take their
time over colds and cling to them as if they were fond of
them, their variqjas engagements were called off. We were
all to have gon 6 to Conrad’s for a sort of second Christmas
festivity, but it proved impossible. But, if you will let
us, we are coming just as soon as the weather eases off a
trifle, and I know the babies will be glad to see you and
Lady Colvin again.’

‘ Joan, having inspected the books, made a comment
which would, I think, have pleased Caldecott himself. She
had exammed with particular care the one which illus-
trates the affair of the Knave of Hearts and had her finger
upon the picture of the King chastising the Knave with his
sceptre. “ This,” she said with emphasis, — ” this is drawed
proper ! ” I am bidden by the pair of them to convey to
you their love and to thank you in a variety of forms. Joyce
says you are “ something hke a Sir ” ; this is a comparison,
strongly in your favour, with the only other person she
knows who has a title.’

‘ I am trying to write short stories and, for the moment,
failing dismally. I have a brain of dry pith and can’t
invent even anecdotes, much less imagine characters,
situations and atmospheres. I suppose it will pass before
we are forced into the workhouse. Thank God for the
modem magazine, which will pay as much for an arbitrary
sentimental invention as for a work of inspiration. As
0 . Henry said, whom should we do without it ? ’

When the War broke out Gibbon was sent to Russia by
the Daily Chromcle, and he wrote to Colvin no more, or no
more of his letters were kept. He died in 1926.

CHAPTER XXn

THE LIFE OF KEATS AND MEMORhs AND NOTES
iqi7-lQ2l

Colvin’s principal work in the first years of his retirement
was the completion of his large biography and critical
estimate of Keats. The first book had been but an ^say ;
the new one was to be definitive — if any author could bring
himself to use such a word. Whether or no Colvin dared
to, I cannot say, or whether the late Miss Amy LoweE also
had enough temerity ; but certain it is that, in America at
any rate, her two great volumes effectively, on their appear-
ance in 1925, eclipsed Colvin’s single tome of 1917. While
engaged upon the Life of Keats, Colvin brought out, in
1915, through Messrs. Chatto and Windus, a new edition
of the Poems, chronologically arranged ; while it was during
his work on the poet that he set upon preparing his Pr^i-
dential address for the English association, his theme being
Conuidratim in English Poetry.

According to the lecturer, the subject was suggested to
him by George Meredith ; but let me give the story in his
own words : ‘ Meredith was fond, especially in later years,
of reading to any friend who might be with him the poetry
he had last been writing. His tones in reading were im-
pre^vdy rotund, resonant, and masterful, but withal level
and not much modulated. I have spent many horns with
him listening to such reading, enjosdng the rich roll of
sound and the presence and atmosphere of his potent per-
sonality, but finding, as those familiar with his verse will
easily imagine, the sense of what he read often hard to
foEow. As a rule he courted no criticism and aBowed for
ns

THE LIFE OF KEATS

313

no difficulty ; but on the day of which I speak he was more
indulgent than usual. He paused to say that he knew
some people found his poetry obscure, and to ask whether
I did, and where, and why ? I tried to point out some
puzzles in his printed poems which I had failed to solve,
even with the page before me and full leisure to study it.
But he simply c^uld not see that they were puzzles at all,
and closed the talk characteristically with a crow of exult-
ing laughter over the sluggishness of my Saxon wits. In
the course of it, defining his own aims and ideals in verse,
he repeated several times with insistence, " Concentration
and suggestion, Colvin, concentration and suggestion, those
are the things I care for and am always tr3dng for in poetry.” ’

The lecture in its reprinted form makes excellent reading,
provocative at times and always alert and pointed. I re-
member the occasion well, and how Colvin’s voice either
reverberated like an organ or shook with a deep tremolo
as the poets’ periods moved him. He read poetry with a
kind of rapture that was capable of becoming almost a
Gregorian chant.

Looking now at the pamphlet I cannot beheve that it
can all have been dehvered orally on that afternoon, and I
cannot agree that extracts from Meredith are suitable for
public declamation. Colvin, however, was always critic
and writer rather than orator.

I quote a passage analysing and eulogizing Meredith as
a poet ; ‘ I shall not take any of these [recent younger poets]
for my modem instances of the confirmed habit of concen-
tration and condensation in poetry. More extreme and
conspicuous instances will at once occur to you. Browning
will most probably occur: Meredith, I should expect,
certainly. Between these two masters there was in fact
this in common, that each threw into his work an extra-
ordinary amount of intellectual energy ; each crowded his
with meaning, and the result in both cases was frequent
obscurity, or at least a heavy strain on what Macaulay, in
that criticism of Dryden which Mr. Balfour quoted,, calls

3X4 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

“ the ductility of language.” Or shall we fall back on a
more old-fashioned quotation, and say that each failed in
his degree to combine with his other excellences the par-
ticular excellence which Shenstone attributes to Pope, that
of “ consolidating or condensing sentences, yet preserving
ease and perspicuity.” Browning, as we all know, com-
monly uses a hurried elliptical style of ^cat compression,
tacking clause on to clause in brcatliless, almost grammar-
less, apposition, throwing over the auxiliary parts of speech,
discarding relative pronouns, .skipping here and hinting
there, and generally taking for granted that you follow the
connexions and understand the imphed situations without
a word. In this characteristic manner he often keeps the
reader bewildered, but often also, especially in the lyric
form, achieves passages and phrases of true and admirable
poetic concentration. Nevertheless, if one had to name the
chief or dominating characteristic of Browning's work, it
would not, I think you will agree, be the habitual summari-
ness or capriciousness or compre.ssion of it.s poetic form, but
its unflagging, indefatigable elaboration and determined
elucidation of the matter whatever that may be. No poet
shows such prodigious activity and staunchness in pursuing
a subject to its last windings and recesses, and exhausting
its uttermost psychological possibilities. Ilis uses of the
methods of concentration and suggestion are •relatively but
incidental, are but tricks of style adopted for convenience
in the course of this inveterate pursuit. Therefore I shall
leave Browning out for the purpose of the present study,
and go straight to Meredith, with whom concentration and
suggestion were almost all in all. I have quoted his own
words spoken to myself as evidence that he aimed at these
eSSats consciously and of set purpose, though the purpose
was no doubt in the first instance prompted and dhected
by natural instinct. We are too near as yet to be able to
take the measure of such a man. But I think there can
be no doubt that his mind and imagination were among the
ridheSt and most resourceful, and above afl the most rapid

THE LIFE OF Kfaj.:3

in working, that have ever expressed themselves in our
literature. It interested me the other day to find a defini-
tion of genius in general quoted as thrown out by this man
of genius in the course of conversation with a very straight-
forward and simple-minded witness, the American publisher
Mr, S. S. McClure. “ As nearly as I can remember,” reports
this gentleman,^ " Meredith said : ' genius is an extra-
ordinary activity of mind in which aH conscious and sub-
conscious knowledge mass themselves without any effort
of the will, and become effective. It manifests itself in
three ways — in producing, in organizing, and in rapidity of
thought.’ ”

‘ The actual words do not sound to my ear quite like
Meredith’s ; but the definition fits at least his own genius
accurately, except that ” extraordinary ” is too weak a
word to describe the activity of his mind. All its accumu-
lated resources, conscious or subconscious, of human intui-
tion, impassioned observation, and hterary study ; aU its
fruits of meditation on the processes of nature and the
issues of life ; all its unlimited energy in the clothing of
intellectual ideas with figurative imagery, were spontane-
ously and instantly ready for use, nay, thrustingly and
importunately ready, and by no means to be kept, supposing
it had been in his nature to try and keep them, back. It
may be regretted that his conscious artistic purpose was
to encourage and spur rather than to bridle and restrain the
exercise of all these faculties. He never fully realized the
difference between his own mind and the minds of other
people. He always seemed to me like one of those acrobats
of the trapeze, less in vogue now than they were thirty years
ago, whose gift and practice it was to hang by the han^ and
fling themselves through space, with what seemed the' swift-
ne^ and certainty of actual flight, from one swinging bar
suspended high overhead to another. To the spectator
below, whose way of locomotion was by the humble means
of his footsoles on the floor, the thing seemed a miracle.
To similar half-miraculous and not wholly human faculties

3 i 6 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

are due the things that make Meredith’s poetry so difficult
at first to follow : the rvay of never describing an object as
what it is but always by an image, or an action by its obvious
verb but always by some figurative substitute meant to
strike the ramd more vividly ; the headlong leap from one
image to another, each separate image in itself often too
strained and too j emote to be quickly apprehended : the
trick of letting ssmtax and construction trail after this race
of images as best it may or drop behind altogether ; the
habitual rejection, much more complete and scornful than
Browning’s, of the auxiliary and explanatory parts of
speech ; the passion for packing and plugging into five
words the meaning and suggestive power of fifty. You all,
I dare say, recognize the qualities in Meredith’s works of
which I speak.’

Copies of the lecture were sent by Colvin to his friends.
I find Conrad thus repl3dng : —

* Capel House, OrieUoue, nr, Ashjord, ly Avfj^ ’15.

‘ My dear Colvin, — It is a most dehghtful lecture and
most judiciously illustrated, it a mind so uncultivated as
mine ^res express an opmion

' You have said there any amount of just and penetrating
things. I shall ask you when you come here to sign the
" opuscule ” for me.

‘ I have felt suddenly that I would love to rend poets with
you. And not only those who need an interpreter — ^like
Meredith, for instance. A poet who needs elucidation has
mfesed his mark, which is the centre of our emotions — and
that alone (and by the by your prose of this address is
fuH of illuminating phrases— of lines that both make clear
and*' suggest ; as for instance when you speak of Meredith :
"letting S3mtax and construction trail after this race of
imag®.’’ This is not the best instance, but tliat 's what I
mean. It was real pleasure to read you on and on). TcU
me please ; did M, — ^in the example you give on p, 21 — did
hexeally write Dead leaves heeled ! In Wellington

boots i suppose. Unless I don’t know all the meanings of

THE LIFE OF KEAlb

the word heel. But otherwise the expression is grotesque
enough? for a printer's error for heaped — or any other word.
There 's no word that wouldn’t do better than }ieeled there,
because heeled is essentially false m suggestion.

‘ The indubitable misprint is in the quotation from Brown-
ing : groan for grown. But the whole passage is what you
say — except for ,the last line, which sounds and looks
strangely pretty-pretty after the quasi-Dantesque energy
of the others.

' Strange notion of supreme beatitude ! — eternal twilight
and the Elect recumbent in bliss without any clothes, like
gentlemen after a Turkish bath.

‘ Such then is, according to B., the reward of travail and
sorrow, of sweat and tears for the faithful souls after the
trials and temptations on this earth. Well : Maybe. But
I think that he let the association of the grave creep into
his conception of eternal life. A moment of weakness.
But Keats, the wellbeloved, had never, never, such moments
of " defaithance.”

‘ I haven’t left myself room to tell you (if it could be
really told in cold ink) how much good our visit to you has
done to us both. Jessie has come back rested and com-
forted by dear Lady Colvin’s influence, and I made happy
by her gracious words about my book — priceless indeed
because one 'knows them to be sincere. Our run together
that afternoon was hke a draught of heartening elixir to
me. You must both believe in our warm and grateful
affection. — Yours ever. J. Conrad ’

One other letter on the lecture : —

' I Carlton Hotise Terrace, S.IF., Aitg. 6 , ’15.

‘ My dear Colvin, — 1000 thanks for copy of your address.
A most suggestive subject and worked out with your excep-
tional knowledge & skill.

‘ I think that the only poem of Meredith that I passion-
ately care for is the only one that I thoroughly understand,
viz. Love in the Valley. — Yours sincerely, Curzon ’

3i8 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

The completion of the Keats hook was made less easy by
the War, which stirred the feelings both of Colvifi and
of his wife to the depths. AU his resources of indignation,
aH her weUs of pity, were excited day by day ; and if he
could have exchanged his pen for a sword I am sure he
would have done so. It was no time, he was well aware,
to be delving into the biographical details of a romantic
neo-Greek poet. Still, it was as weU that the task had to
be performed ; for it helped to quieten a very emotional
nature.

In the course of working on the Keats biography, many
points arose on which Colvin required assistance. Among
ids queries was the exact locality on the Dorsetdiire coast
explored by Keats and Severn when landing from the
Mane Crowther on their way to Rome. The late' Thomas
Hardy, on being consulted on the subject, rephed thus ; —

'Max Gate, Dorchester, 14 June 1914

‘ My dear Colvin, — We have been weighing probabilities
in the question of the “ splendid caverns and grottoes ” of
Severn, that you write about, and have come to the con-
clusion that he must mean “ Durdle Door,” dose to Lul-
worth Cove. (You can get a postcard photograph of it —
from Hills and Rowney, Dorchester : there is also an old
engraving of it in Hutchins’s Dorset.) Why we think it
must have been Durdle Door is that it impressed my wife
just in the same way when she first saw it as a girl.

‘ To see it from the inside (which would give the impres-
sion) they would have landed in the cave, & have walked
over tide cliff to the west, & down behind the “ Door.”
The yralk would have taken them only a few minutes.

‘ *”There is a smuggler’s cave in Worbarrow Day, But it
is difficult to find, though in Keats’s time it would most
likdy have been dearer. The only other cave I know about
here is Cave Hole, Portland. But that is difficult of access
except at low and quiet tides.

‘ I am sending some Keats names that I jotted down

THE LIFE OF KEATS

319

when you wrote to the papers. They are useless, I fancy,
which why I did not send them earlier. However here
they are. I knew personally all the persons mentioned,
and used always to be struck by their resemblance to the
poet. — Sincerely yours, Thomas Hardy'

‘ P.S. — I assume that Swanage would be too far east.
There are, of courle, the Tilly- Whim Caves near that place,

‘T. H.'i

Again, a Uttle later : —

‘Max Gate , Dorchester , ■ 2 <^\ 'j 1914

' My dear Colvin, — “ Beautiful grottoes ” is certainly
rather an exaggerated description of what one finds at
Durdle Door, and Stair Hole dose by . yet an enthusiastic
young Londoner might on a first impression use such words.
Besides, if not Durdle Door, Stair Hole, &c., what place
can it be that Severn meant ? The “ Door " is an arch-
way in the diff, as you know : Stair Hole has caves &
fissures into which the sea flows, & there is another cave at
Bat’s Comer, also dose at hand.

‘ At any rate I cannot think of another pomt on the
Dorset coast, easily accessible from a boat, which so well
answers the description.

‘The “cottages” would be those of the adjoining
Lulworth Cove & village, but they do not, of course, face
the “ grottoes,” as Severn seems to imply. I put that down
to his fancy, as such a position would hardly be possible
anywhere. With kind regards — Sincerdy yours,

‘Thomas Hardy’

Here is a belated postscript : ‘ I forgot to say in my letter

that some 40 years ago my father told me that the K s

of this neighbourhood came of a family of horse-dealers,
who lived in the direction of Broadmayne, , „ „ ,

^ In the FitzwiUiam Museum.

320 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

One more note from Hardy —

‘ I just remember this trifle, & send it on for what It may
be worth m your Life.

‘ Swinburne told me that Mrs. Procter (Barry Cornwall’s
widow) told him that one day when Leigh Hunt called
on her father he brought with him an unknown youth
who was casually mentioned as bemg a Mr. John Keats.

That learned Scot, the late W. P. Ker, with his accus-
tomed readiness to help his friends, read the proofs of the
L%fe of Keats while it was passing through the press. His
letters are chiefly comments, but there is no harm m that
when they come from so sure a hand. Thus, referring to
the journal of Keats’ and Brown’s Highland walking tour : —

‘ Soon Ailsa Craig & presently Arran. Ailsa? & Arran
come together m the view — ^Arran rather sooner, if anything,
I should say — as you cross the hiU from the head of Glen
App making for B^antrae.’

‘ Where was it that they left Glen App ? I have had
debates on this subject in Glen App itself, & I was hoping
for news from your Pl37mouth Journal. Did they follow
the present line of road up by Carlock ? Or did they turn
off to the left (to the North) nearer the foot of the glen ?

‘ Cromarty never was the port of Inverness — Inverness
,is its own port.

‘When were they at Beauly? K. doesn’t say they
sailed from Inverness, & his taking “the smack from
Cromarty ’’ is ambiguous. It would be a natural obvious
thing to go on from Beauly & get the boat at Cromarty. It
would be much the same to come back & start from Inver-
ness, and the “ smack from Cromarty ” would be likely to
call at Inverness.

‘ Is it right to say “ centre round ’’ ? Can any move-
ment centre round a centre ? I am not sure.

‘ Perhaps there is some room for misunderstanding about
Keats’s philosophy — n6t if the reader is careful — ^but a
casii^' reader might naistake Keats’s figurative language

THE LIFE OF KEATS 321

for defective thinking. Will you not add something to
safeguard ?

‘ Keats’s imaginative arguments are not mere picture,
thinking — jumping from one image to another.

‘ Have you ever observed that K. and Shelley about the
same time are taken with the idea of the Zeitgeist as we used
to call him ? Spiritual wmds and waves are carrying all'
the minds of an age%long with him — quite clearly explained
or anyhow recognised by Shelley in Preface to Remit of \
Jislam — Compare the end of Sleep and Poetry.

‘ I am proud to think that I learned m^hology out of
Baldwin’s Pantocon. It was a school prize of my Father’s
at the Glasgow Grammar School, & I have it now, though
not at hand,

‘ I never knew till now that Baldwin was Godwin.

‘ I don’t see an3rihing wrong with the end of the poem.
It has never sounded incomplete to me. Paeona is not
bewildered. She has much to wonder at — ^like every
reader of poetry who is not a poet. But she is not in
distress or suspense. It is just the end of the story.

‘ Is not Leigh Hunt’s soimet one of the best in the lan-
guage ? Hazlitt thought so, didn’t he ? But then Hazlitt ,
^dn't think much of Astrophel, which proves that all know- '
ledge is relative. I think it is a very fine poem. And it
appears that I* H. had not got it in fist ready made to
slap on the table ; as critics have suspected.

‘ Even Scott did not know Galloway — Guy Mannering is
written at a distance from the Object.

‘ Loch na Keal is better though not punctilious accurate
Gadic. You do not write “Mount ofolives,” and Lodh
Nakeal is as bad as that.

‘ I don’t like “ buEy ’’ used of Christopher North.

‘ Rigby an ignorant caricature ! “ teasing with obvious
comment, and torturing with inevitable inference.”

‘ Leese me on Rigby I

‘ Ben Johnson. ’W^y sic ? It is a very go<ji^ way to
spell Johnson.

X

322 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Chatterton’s fluent style would make a very good
alternative after a surfeit of Milton.

‘ There are two “ unrh 5 nnes ” in Lyctdas.

' Is it a hen nightingale ?

‘ He did not thmk of Saturn and his fellows as an5dhing
near to barbanans ; the tragedy is that their noble old
order has got to be displaced & refuted. The speech of
Oceanus would lose its meaning othenwise. And this I
think explains the no ending of Hyperion. Keats had in-
tentionally & with all his power — not out of innate gentle-
ness but because it was his meaning — put all the dignity &
majesty he could into Saturn. Then Oceanus H 5 T)erion —
He had then to go on to ApoUo — but he had used up all his
light already. Apollo could not be anything more than a
variety of what had been already expressed — not without
a miracle, like a picture breaking out suddenly with real
sunlight on the landscape. The poem is reaUy concluded,
i.e. the speech of Oceanus explains ever 5 dhing, & you have
just to believe that Apollo came and was very wonderful
& glorious.

‘ These are of course not dogmatisms but considerations
submitted for your judgment.

‘ Glasgow [the pnntmg firm] has come back sober from
the Fair [August Bank Holiday] and sends these three
sheets which I have read with great pleasure & I am sorry
the story is at an end.

' Consumption ; why not combustion ? " Consumption ”
is a word so often used in the story in another sense that
it grates here hke the name of someone we don’t want to
hear about.

‘ Is Lowell a chief poet ? I hope not.

‘ What is something that wiU do as well as beauty ? An
excellent substitute for beauty? So I have seen in a
Goodge Street grocer’s window “ Eggs equal to newlaid.”

' I am not quite sure whether it is right to speak of the
Desires & Aspirations & Dreams m Aionais as abstractions.
But you leave no real doubt as to what they really are.

THE LIFE OF KEATS

though I think your idea of Shelley seems a httle too
M. Arnold’s ineffectual angel.'

In 1917 the Life of Keats came out. As to its n
there is a fine chorus of approval. I select a few k
from many. This from the Hon. Maurice Baring, v
elegiacs on Auberon Herbert were among the most beat
poetry called forth by the War : —

‘ Head Quarters Royal Flying Cm
‘B E F. Frcmce. 2.12 17.

‘ Dear Sir Sidney Colvin, — I have been just spen
some very enjoyable hours reading your Life of Keats
will not be so impertinent as to say a word of praise —
can say is that I wish there could be a companion hi
Shelley of tiae same calibre, weight, understanding, s
pathy & completeness. But unless you were wiUini
undertake the task I don’t know who could. The fact
you point out & which I myself have often noticed
the Pro-Keats are seldom Pro-Shelley is very striking
not I think difficult to understand. My own experienc
— Since writing these words a door has banged six time
a telephone has rung once, so that writing — consecu
writing, is difficult — I was going to try to say that my
perience was among my contemporaries & people of
generation after me & that in my opinion from the p(
of view of one who fortunately admires & enjoys She
& Keats to the «th (Baxton Inman did — & you do I thin
it is Keats who on fiie whole has been by our generation
yours, min e. & the one next to me — the more overrated
the two — Shelley the more underrated of the two — '

‘ I always think that in Shelley’s case two facts are o\
looked, the rapidly arriving maturity coming after a he<
period of unripeness — (& everybody admits this in Ket
case — and SheEey seemingly was less immature in his eai
period than Keats) & the presence in SheUey of rea
astonishingly deep thought behind the rainbow veils— |
' Another question which comes is this : a Russian ®i

324 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

said to me 4 years ago — the year before the War — " All you
literary people in England are so mundied & drained by
the offsprings & tradition of the Sensuous school of dehcious
language — Keats-Tennyson-Yeats tradition, that you are
quite mcapable of doing justice to a poet such as Byron,
•who whatever you say is grossly underrated, & who what-
ever you say is a great poet — ”

‘ I repeat I should like 2 companion 'Volumes : one on
Shelley & one on B3n:on by a critic as -wide in sympathy,
as fine in discrimination, & as sure in scholarship, as yourself.
•—Yours sincerely, Maurice Baring ’

' P.S. — I am firmly convinced that we are no wiser than
Keats’ generation & that even today we may be utterly
neglectmg a possible Keats — I 'm not sure I don’t know
a case which occurred m the last 10 years — a‘ poet who
died anonymous & who is buried in the same cemetery
at Rome.’

1'' %

A last letter from John, afterwards Lord, Morley : —

'Aug 9 18

* Flowermead, Pnncss Road, Wimbledon Park, SJK.

‘ My dear Colvin, — It was a real pleasure to me to see
your hand again — so familiar and so uncommonly helpful
was it to me long years ago. It rejoices me to feel the
accents of good friendship in your letter, in spite of the
angry quarrels of the hour. . . .

‘ I have hunted bravely for the thing in V. H., but I ’ll be
hanged if I can hit upon the guest minister. I envy your
evening with him. He was one of the giants, after all.

‘ Your Keats gave me lively satisfaction of the best sort,
and I understand that my satisfaction is shared by a good
public. I have a trifle of self-esteem in recalling — as you
also do — ^that it was I who started you on this subject —
so fruitful in your hand.

‘ All good wishes, my dear Col'vin. — Yours ever,

‘J. M.’

THE LIFE OF KEATS

From Lord Tennyson : ‘ My Father said of E
“ Keats, with his high spiritual vision, would have
if he had lived, the greatest of us — ^There is something n
and of the innermost soul of poetry in almost everyi
which he wrote." Again, “ Keats had a keen phj
imagination ; if he had been here (at Murren), he is
in one line have gij^enus a picture of that mountain.”

‘ Another saying of my Father’s . “ Keats pron
securely more than any English poet since Milton.”

To The Times, after Colvin’s death m 1926, Mr, ^
Bailey sent the following letter : ‘ May I add one woi
supplement to the admirable notice of Sir Sidney Cc
which I have just read in The Tunes ? In it his Ltj
Keats is barely mentioned, without comment. This se
to me to do less than justice to what I venture to thin
the best critical biography we have of any of our gre
poets. If one takesi the obvious names — Chaucer, Sper
Shakespeare, Milton] Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleri*
B3iTon, SheUey — of ■^hich of these do we possess a life wl
unites knowledge of me facts, emotional and aesthetic unt
standing, critical penetration, and certainty of judgm
as they are, I think, combined m Colvm's Life of Kea
Of course it makes no pretence of competing with such li
by contemporaries as Hogg’s SheUey, Lockhart’s St
Moore’s Byroh, or with such a biographical and ciit
essay as Johnson’s Pope But as a fuU-length biograp
critical and personal, written long after the death of ;
subject and by a wnter who never saw him, I cannot
what rival it has in our language.’

Finally let me quote a rambling and very characteris
letter from the late Oscar Browning :

'Palazzo Simonefti, Via Pietro Cavalhm, Roma
'New Year’s Day, 1918.

‘My dear Colvin, — I have just finished reading
Life of Keats. I have read every word of it with the in<
intense interest. I have no words sufficient to praisei

326 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

It is a masterly work, and will be a standard book & place
the fame of Keats on a permanent basis.

‘ I have had, for a good deal more than sixty years, very
special relations with Keats. I went to Eton m 1851 at
the age of fourteen, and I was m the division of WiUiam
Johnson [author of Ionica\, who was also my tutor, in my
opinion the greatest genius who ever gave himself to the
education of boys. We had to compose a copy of Latin
verses every week, and one week he set us the speech of
Cl37mene in " HjTperion” for a subject. I learnt it by heart '
and could repeat it now ; another time he gave us the “Pot
of Basil," which I learnt in a similar manner. He often
talked to us about Keats & offered a prize to any of his
pupils who would learn “ Hyperion " by heart ^ I began but
did not get to the end. He also gave me a magnificently
bound copy of Keats, I think Moxon’s edition, which does
not contain the “Belle Dame sans Merci,” nor I think the
“Ode to Melancholy” — ^which is of every thing that Keats
has written the poem I most value. In your book you have
not given much prominence either to Clymene's speech,
which I consider a masterpiece, or to the melancholy ode,
which is always with me. The consequence was that when
I went up to Cambridge in 1856 I was soakeA with Keats,
& was alwaj^ preaching him to the Apostles & other friends,
& after I went as a master to Eton in i860, to my boys. I
don’t think that he was much known at Cambridge in
1856, nor did Tennyson ever speak to me about him. My
pagod at school was Byron, whom you detest, but I still
think him the second highest poet, as aU foreigners do.
Tennyson had a great cult for him. You remember that
the news of his death caused him a violent attack of illness.

‘ I was a great deal in Rome from 1863 to 1875 — & Severn
was consul here. I never met him. I once climbed up to
his door in the Pakzzo Pol with the intention of calling
on him to talk about Keats, but I was afraid to go in. As
[undecipherable word] once said to me, “ Ai 4 refois j'itats
timde, mats cela fosse'’ It has been proved with me.

THE LIFE OF KEATS

327

‘ I can’t find any mistakes in your book except that you
say that Leigh Hunt was present at the burning of Shelley.
He certainly was not. I investigated the whole thing very
carefully at Via Reggio some twenty years ago. The only
people present were B3nron, Trelawny Sc Mrs. Shelley, who
carried the heart home in a pocket-handkerchief. It is a
strange thmg th|it Napoleon’s heart also fell out, when he
was being embalmed, & was nearly eaten by a rat. I used to
stay a good deal at Fiyston [Lord Houghton’s house] & I
remember that the book containing the Keats poems lay
on the study table — ^but I never examined it, fool that I
was ! Do you know the story of “ Keats, what 's a Keat ? ”
One day at the Trinity High Table that was said. " 0 . B.
is going to lecture this evening on Keats. [”] A science
Fellow said “ Keats ? what ’s a Keat ? [”] on which there
was a great guffaw — Then Langley said, “ It is all very weU
for you fellows to laugh, but I don’t believe that any one
of you could quote a smgle line of Keats,” Of course there
is one line which everyone knows, even science men. . . .

‘ You say nothing about the Keats-SheUey House here,
of which I was one of the foimders. I have a haunting
suspicion that Keats really died, not in these hallowed
rooms, but on the floor below. I believe that Severn
said so, and it [seems] more hkely that he lived on the
ground flodr instead of going up stairs — ^besides it would be
cheaper — but hush i hush ! '

‘ Nor have you said anything about our Keats-Shelley
Association, which gives memorial lectures during the
season. The High Priests are Nelson Page [the then,'
Amencan Ambassador] & Rome. All the aristocracy of
Rome belong to it Sc no one else, except myself — I was
once allowed to lecture, I suppose by mistake — a mistake
never repeated. The subscription is £20 bis [?] a year--!
very dear.

‘ How many years have we known each other ? Did you
or did you not on one occasion ask my advice about youi|
course in hfe, when your relatives were urging’ you to

328 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

embrace some lucrative occupation & I supported you in
your determination to stick to art & literature ? .Did it
happen or did I dream it ?

‘ Rome has the best society in the world even in war time
— but it can be cold. Believe me — ever yours,

‘ Oscar Browning ’

In a letter in 1918, ‘ Q’ says : ‘The Stfivenson in "E. M.
of L.” begms to look as if it would never be written — that
is, by me. What with War and pressure of work I’m
feeling like the West country lady who said that " in these
days one cannot lie down at night & be sure of getting up
in the same position next morning.” ’

As a matter of fact, the ‘ English Men of Letters ’ volume
on R. L. S. has not yet appeared. It was subsequently
given to Mr. Robert L3md.

The Colvins during the summer of 1918 occupied my
house at Tillington, close to Petworth, a circumstance
which led to this postscript to ' Q’s ’ letter ; ‘ It 's rather
pleasant of you to be at Petworth. I started my first book
there — Dead Man's Rock, in Aug or Sept. 1886 — ^in a
watchmaker’s house by the Half Moon(?) just outside the
big house. I was tutoring young George Wyndham then :
eldest son of the late L<^. Leconfield, Sc brother of the
present one. He died young, poor boy! We read the
whole of the Iliad through together,

‘ Then I 'd go home & slug at the story. Remember
writing the first page and walking out along the road by the
park wall, turning uphill by a pub. called the Light Horse-
man, or some such name, & seating myself for a pipe on a
hill that looked dear across to Termyson’s place [Aldworth].
I was back again next year (1887) when my copies of the
book arrived from Cassdl’s. Also I was just engaged to be
married when I started the book — So you may give Petworth
my love.’

In 1921 Colvin’s last book was published : a collection of
essays and character sketches entitled Memories md Notes

MEMORIES AND NOTES 329

0/ Persons and Places, i8£2-igi2, from which I have
borrowed freely for these pages, but not so freely as to
make that work a superfluity. The essay on Stevenson
seems to have called forth some criticism from Maurice
Hewlett, who was then writing a regular literary causerie
in the English Review. Colvin must have remonstrated, for
I find Hewlett writing, in April 1922 : —

‘ My deae Colvin,— I am sure that I shall take nothing
that you say amiss. If I have been wrong in any matter
of fact, which is perfectly possible, I shall not hesitate for
a moment about withdrawing or correcting it. Opinions are
another matter. What opinions I have about Stevenson’s
writing I have had for a long time. I should not have
expressed, them if Freeman’s article had not brought them
into my head again.

‘ The “ friends ” of whom I was thinking were you and
Lang ; and what I meant was, obviously, that the sense
of your loss moved you to instil in the general imagmation
what was so strongly in your own. The romantic and
endearmg figure was, in fact, a revelation to the public — of
which, in my way, I was one. Until Stevenson was dead
I had very little idea of him — though I had seen him once
at the Savile. The idea which I then obtained was surely
largely owing to the generous warmth with which you, Lang,
and in a lesser degree Gosse and Mr. Graham Balfour,
pr;|i8ed, and properly praised, your fiiend. I don’t think
Ste\j’)wpc«a's novels so good as you think them ; but I
acxidik «tery word you have to say of his dianil, his high
personal quality and power. — Yours sincerely

‘M. Hewlett’

And again : ‘ I ^ve never thought so highly of Stevenson’s
works as most jMple do — and soberly do consider the his-
torical and descilpmave things of his, his best work. I thin k
he would have been a good historian. But these things could
be better talked about over the roimd table at the dub.

I stfll widi you had not left Cambridge out of your book.’

330 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

And this was Hewlett’s last word on the matter, in
June 1922 : ‘ Please, my dear Colvin, don’t be afflicted
with what I, or Freeman, thmk proper to say about Steven-
son. Neither of us can possibly matter, or can have any
effect whatever upon S. or his memory. If “ Lord, what
is man ! ” is a becoming reflection for me to make, it wfll
be equally becoming for Stevenson. I Ij^d always thought
him overpraised, and that such excess really obscured his
excellence. When I found Freeman, unknown to me,
saying so, I took up my own httle parable. That ’s really
all. You mustn’t look round and say. Nous sommes trahis,
because two writers have the same idea.’

I find among the letters one from Hewlett to Lord Crewe,
expressmg regret that he could not be at the Colvin banquet
in 1912, in which he says that it is for his work' in connec-
tion with Landor that, as a literary man, he chiefly esteems
him. Maurice Hewlett died in 1923.

The following enthusiastic letter crossed the Atlantic
from Thomas Seccombe, who soon afterwards returned
to England, only to die : —

‘ Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
‘ 27 Jan. 1923

‘Dear Sir Sidney Colvin, — ^After anxious pursuit I
have managed just to get your new book— they have a
pernicious habit of getting printed tickets for all new books
from Washington before issumg them here. I have been
browsing over it all day and feel that I must write a word of
cordial congratulation and thanks. The great old [Frederic]
Harrison, the martinet, has passed away at last, it seems,
and only yesterday I read in the Times of the decease of
that good all-round Yorkshireman and my good old friend
Armitage Smith : but all the same it is the day of les vieux.
. . , Lytton Strachey is the only jeune and he looks about
the oldest of the lot. I wish I could stand the treatment,
but tibds place with all its sunshine is too much for me, and
if I. want to see my native land again I must seek a cottage

MEMORIES AND NOTES 33 i

in the south this summer. Our age will decline after the
war. ^ You were made of sterner stuff, you Victonans !
Jenkm is the only one I could dispense with since Miss
Masson’s compilation. The other subjects are so delightful.
I seem to be so dreadfully at home and homesick in Suffolk,
nding from Ipswich to Aldeburgh through Woodbridge.
How IS Clodd a^d all his Meredithism ? Your Meredith is
splendid. To my mmd, between ourselves, he was not a
patch on W. M. T., but it is no laughing matter, is it, to the
nation that either should have been excluded from the
Abbey at the expense of hvmg ? How I rejoice in what
you say about the Bnde of L. and that puir thin fule T. F. H.
I have stiH to read 6 and 7 but 12 and 14 are well withm
me and how I enjoyed the “ Land’s End of France.” ^ Full of
Loitz, Le Braz, and so many books that I caimot quite re-
member, yet quite hke no other books. How I loved and
remember wheeling about that Bodmin moor between
Quimper and Camac. How I envy writing that essay.
Do hurry up with the next and do insert that Cambridge
one. I am all agog now for R. L. S., Dobson, Long Leshe
Stephen and your noble self. Swiftly may your year
prosper and your luncheon table in the land of Croker
where they still permit whisky on Bums Day. — Dehghtedly
yours, Thomas Seccombe’

1 These were the chapters on George Eliot and J F Watts. Chapters
XII and XIV dealt with Sir Charles Newton and Trelawny

CHAPTER XXIII

'famous voices’

1923

Although he spent much time, without much method, in
revising early essays — particularly one on the Centaurs —
Colvin did almost no consecutive writing after the publica-
tion of Memories and Notes m 1921. His chief hterary work
at this time consisted chiefly m preparing the selections
from Stevenson’s letters to Mrs. Sitwell (from which I have
quoted in earlier chapters) for the Empire Review. He had
not enough strength for the necessary appHcation, and he
was harassed by Lady Colvin’s failing health. One short
paper he did, however, prepare : recollections of the manner
and sound of the voices of some of his great contemporaries,
and this Uttle article I now reproduce from the pages of
John 0’ London’s Weekly, where it appeared : —

‘Famous Voices I Have Heard.

‘ John o’ London’s editor having been interested, it seems,
in the account of Rossetti’s speaking voice which he found
in my recent book of Memories and Notes, asks me for a
column describing the voices of other famous men whom I
have known.

‘ As a mere instrument the most musical and magical
voice, the most caressing and conquering at once (I am
talking of men only, not of women), was certainly that of
Sir John Duke Coleridge, afterwards Lord Coleridge. I
was not present at any of the great feats of forensic argu-
ment or persuasion which have made his name historical —
the Ticibome case was, of course, the most famous of them

332

‘ FAMOUS VOICES ’

333

— and only knew him in private life, chiefly m his capacity
as pr^ident of a certain ancient and distmguished dining
society. An inexhaustible store of legal anecdotes used to
furnish a larger proportion of his talk than some of us would
have asked for, but the mere utterance had a charm which
would have reconciled us to matter much less uiterestmg.
And one used to wonder whether this “ silver-soimding
instrument ” was simply the fitting organ supplied by
Nature to a temperament extraordinarily sympathetic and
persuasive, or how much of it may have been a gift heredi-
tary in his blood. Had the recorded irresistible charm
in conversation of his grand-uncle, the poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, over and above the genius and inspiration of his
matter — ^had it been derived in part from the mere melliflu-
ousness of the accents which flowed from those loose, fleshy,
irresolute, mspired hps of his ?

‘ The two great Victorian poets, Tennyson and Brown-
ing, had both of them voices which, heard whether habitu-
ally or occasionally, impressed the ear and stiU haunt the
memory, but haunt it in very different modes. Both were
essentially masculine ; Teimyson’s a deep grand bass mono-
tone, gruff without being harsh or grating ; his pronuncia-
tion of certain vowels had a provincial breadth derived, as
I always understood, from Ms Lincolnshire origin, and he
would pass from the most impressive recitation of poetry
into ordinary colloquial talk with little or no change of key
but stiH “ rolling out his deep-mouthed a’s and o’s ” with
the same monotonous solemn sonority. I particularly
remember how such transition to the trivial happened,
almost without break or pause, on one occasion when, possi-
bilities of imminent war being in the air, he had just thrilled
his company to the very marrow with the dosing words of
the Revenge ballad :

' " And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy
of Spam,

And the httle Revenge herself went down by the island crags

To be lost evermore in the main,”

334 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Browning had no such impressive natural organ as his
great contemporary. His ordinary speaking voice was
extremely vigorous, somewhat louder — perhaps from his
long custom of life in Italy — than is encouraged by social
usage in England. But his utterance was much more
flexible and dramatically vaiymg with the theme than
Tennyson’s ; always vinle, generally tending towards the
harsh, but freely and expressively modulate^ for the different
purposes of cordiahty or admiration or sympathy or jest
or narrative or argument. And sometimes it would be very
moving to note how in the readmg or recitation of poetry,
whether his own or another’s, his firmly modelled features
would relax, his masterful accents break with emotion,
and there would be unrepressed tears both on his face and
m his utterance. I remember particularly how, one day
It was aU he could do to master himself and get through the
Pompilia section of The Ring and the Book, and how his
hearers sat silently gulping down their tears in sympathy.

' George Meredith was another great Victorian whose
genius made itself unmistakably felt m his voice and manner
of speaking. If I were asked to define in one word the most
notable quality of Meredith’s utterance, whether in recita-
tion or everyday talk, that one word would be " authority.”
Authority along with striking finish and fullness ; there was
never in his manner of speaking, as there is in that of most
of us, anything half-formed or slack or slurred ; it seemed
as though such completeness, such decision and rotundity,
were matters with him both of self-respect and respect for
his company. Let no reader imagine that I am here describ-
ing that distressing thing, an underbred man's over-care and
over-nicety in speech ; Meredith’s high finish as a talker
seemed to go congenitally with a hke, quality of finish in his
whole make and bfing, his mind and even in his features.
Some of his talk was in the vein of unsparing satire or
badinage, such as was apt to search the conscience or try
the vanity of his hearers. Much, on the other hand, was
in that- of sheer intellectual hilarity ; much, also, of sheer,

‘ FAMOUS VOICES ’

335

dear, and strenuous critical thinking. I never knew him
difficult or hard to foEow in talk as we aU know him to
have Ifeen often in wntmg. But authority, a masterful
completeness and exactness, were characteristic of him ahke
with tongue and pen.

‘ Of Rossetti and his voice I have tried to teE elsewhere.
In readmg or recitation, and not to a much less extent in
daEy talk, he wa^ the greatest magician of them aE. To
hear him was to hsten to a kind of chant, almost a monotone,
but one which managed to express with httle variation of
pitch or inflection a surprismg range and power of emotion.
A kind of sustained musical drone or hum, rich and meEow
and vdvety, with which he used to dweE on and stress and
prolong the rhyme-words and sound-echoes had a profound
effect in stirring the senses and souls of his hearers. It is
close upon fifty years since I first heard him read his poems,
then newly recovered from his wife’s grave, and the enchant-
ment of the experience was such that I have never to this
day been able to judge and cnticize them as cooEy as I
might have done had I read them for the first time to myself.

‘ An almost equal beauty and richness of the mere organ,
with a mudi greater art of variation and flexibihty, bdonged
to another poet of a generation nearer my own — namely,
Stephen Phillips. His place among the poets of the latter
years of the l^t century is not yet settled ; it was unfortu-
nate for hini that — although his life was not long— he
nevertheless outhved his own genius ; but the excessive
depreciation on the part of hack critics which foEowed his
perhaps excessive laudation seems now to be in its turn
exhausted. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict on his
original work, no one who m his good days ever heard him
read poetry wEl quarrel with the judgment that here was
almost an ideal accompEshment in the ay^ — a combmation
of physical gift with emotional and intdpretative power,
with the expression of sensibEities alike metrical and
dramatic, which afforded his hearers an artistic experience
never to be forgotten.

336 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

‘ Lack of space debars me from any attempt to call up
other voices which at various times have laid their spel| upon
and still haunt me. Some foreign, as those of the illustrious
poet Victor Hugo and the irresistible orator Gambetta ;
some native, as those of Gladstone and of John Bright,
each accustomed to dominate and persuade assemblies but
both knowing well how to attune their accents pleasantly
to private pitch ; or most rememberabl# of aU, those of
Shelley’s friend Trelawny, who in his ninetieth year talked
to me for nearly an hour in accents for the most part some-
what fatigued and muffled but for sudden brief bursts
thimderingly rough, bluff, and impressive. These among
my seniors ; and to speak of only two among men con-
temporary with myself or a httle junior, have I not as
though fresh in my ears the voice of the great philosophical
mathematician W. K. Chfford, haunting and captivating
as it was by a kind of surprised and childlike innocence, at
once rapt and placid, which went along with the weakness
due to lung trouble ? — and last, shall I not have until the
end that, vibrating with its Scottish accentuation and rich,
in spite of his chest weakness, with power both from the
inward spirit and from the habit of seafarmg on storm-
beaten coasts, of Robert Louis Stevenson ? ’

CHAPTER XXIV

TRIBUTES TO LADY COLVIN
1924

Lady Colvin became weaker and weaker as the year 1924
progressed, and after days of unconsciousness faded away
on August 1st. Her friend Joseph Conrad died suddenly
two days later, one of his last letters, when he knew that
she could not recover, being to Colvin in these terms : ‘ With
all my heart and soul, with all the strength of affection and
admiration for her, who is about to leave this hard world,
where aU the happmess she could find was in your devo-
tion, I am with you every moment of these black hours it
is yours to live though.

' Pray kiss her hands for me in reverence and love. I
hope she will give blessing thoughts to those who are dear
to me, my wife and children, to whom die always was the
embodiment Df aU that is kind and gracious and lovable
on earth.’

Many tnbutes were written testifying to the constant
rain of her sweet influence. Mr. Garvin, always a noble
eulogist, wrote in the Observer : ‘ She can no more be forgotten
than any of the greater Frenchwomen of the eighteenth
century, for she matched the more famous of them all in
mind, person, and influence. . . . Until lately she kept the
quickest, freshest spirit of youth in everything. She
encouraged the youngest talent. . . .

‘ She knew the latest thing of mark in books and reviews,
in novels, poetry, criticism, the drama, music, politics. , She
caught the trifles light as air, and those who thou^t tiiey
y

338 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

brought her the secrets of the town often formd that she
was before them. Beauty like hers was genius. It*was a
sibylline beauty, over which time had no power, so austere
and firm yet delicate was the architecture of her face, kind-
ling with understanding and responsiveness. Divming in-
tuition like hers was genius. Vitality like hers was genius.
. . . For those who knew her best there is nothing in the
world left to replace her. There is no one at all like her,
nor is it easy to imagine that anyone else could ever have
been like her. She was apart from all type, and you never
thought of trying to describe by comparisons any feature
or trait of hers. It is almost impossible to realize that she
is dead, and hard to write about it. . . .

* The allegiance of women die knew how to win and keep,
but it was delightfully like her humanity that, though her
judgment of both sexes could be as severe on some occa-
sions as her charities of understanding were botmdless at
other times, she was, on the whole, lenient towards that
feebler and more perplexed species which is male.’

The anonymous writer in Engltsh Life whom I have
already quoted supplemented Mr. Garvin's warmth : ‘ No
woman was ever quite like her. Her beautiful face, so
austere in structure, yet so richly illuminated by her wonder-
ful smile, was a very exact reflection of her tender, profound,
and noble character. How impossible it is t6 tell of her
irradiating charm. Everyone in her presence was uplifted
and comforted. She was the soul of honour, discretion
and sympathy.

‘ Though she was the tenderest of beings it was not only
upon this quality that people relied when seeking her
counsel. They sought her help because of her rare insight
into the developments of life’s problems. She never tried
to assuage for a passing hour the difficulties which con-
fronted those who sought her advice. On the contrary she
endeavoured to strengthen determination, to refresh hope,
to mkindle a moral resolution capable of resisting the
world’s hardest buffeting^.’

TRIBUTES TO LADY COLVIN 339

From the letters I choose two. From Sir Austen
Chamberlain ; ‘ I knew Lady Colvm so little except through
R. L. S. that it is almost an impertmence to speak of her,
but I have known you so long & like you so much, even
though we have not very often met, that I must tell you
of my sympathy for you & of my admiration for her. I
suppose that few people have been able to do so much for
a man oi gemu 5 ) who needed good friends, as Lady Colvin
& you did for R. L. S. If that were all you had both done
you might well feel that you had not lived in vain. You
have much else to your credit in a public way, & she, I
doubt not, in more private & womanly ways. But may
I say without irreverence in touchmg holy things, that I
think of you two always as a very perfect model of friend-
ship to friends & of that something — that immeasurably
more in your own hves which only those who have found
the same complete umty & fulfilment in marriage can
perhaps fully understand.

‘ When I think of your loss it sends a shiver through my
soul. God strengthen & comfort you.’

From Lord Crewe : ‘ You must let me send you a word-of
affectionate sympathy. You know how much I have valued
your friendship these many years ; and in later times Lady
Colvin’s welcome made visits to your house pleasanter still.
The loss of'Conrad, which must to you be a very real one,
can only be merged in this deeper sorrow — I am indeed
grieved for you.’

Colvin in course of time found some comfort in preparing
a little memonal of his wife, m which he reprinted, with
changes, the character sketch that he had written fourteen
years before for an anthology of mine called Her Infinite
Variety. I give it here m its latest form, as he amended
it. The memorial also contained the photograph of Lady
Colvin which is reproduced opposite the next page. The
title was ' A Thorough-Bred ’ : —

‘ Sprung from a famous north-country stock transplanted
three centuries ago into Ireland, she is pure-bred through

340 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

many generations, and shows it. Rather under than over
the middle height, but perfectly shaped and proporti<jned,
she bears herself so beautifully, and if need be so proudly, that
showier women seem rustic or insignificant beside her. Her
face is the transparent vesture of her spirit, and her looks
a true muror of the poignancy and integrity of her feelings.
The features are large and noble, and modelled with the
last subtlety of refinement ; at the samef time they are
tinted with the ebb and flow of so dehcate a blood, and
change so swiftly and harmoniously with the motions of
her mmd, that it is by play of expression even more
than by purity of design that they charm and haunt you.
Waiting for her smile is the happiest of anticipations,
and when it comes it is always more enchanting than you
remembered. • ’

' Her voice adds to persuasion candour, and to candour
kindness, in evidence which receives, although it needs not,
a sure corroboration in her eyes. When she sings, the full
richness of her spirit passes into her utterance, and those
who hear her are transported. Such power upon others
has not come to her without the discipline of extreme suffer-
ing. By nature sensitively impatient, swift, and proud, she
has had to bear a double and treble share not only of life’s
cares but of its agonies. They have strained her strength
but not her courage, and left their mark, but* only in a
beautiful underlying sadness which enriches and makes
sacred all her mirth. For mirthful she can still be ; fun
and mischief stiU lurk unquenchable in those faithful eyes ;
the youngest has not so young a laugh as she, and she will
still leap in her chair and clap hands with childish glee (and
nothing becomes her better) at the anticipation of any
simple gift or pleasure.

‘ As for the higher pleasures of art and nature, her
presence enhances them inexpressibly. In the illumina-
tion of beautifal things, she seems to reflect and grow
one with them ; without pretenaon or affectation of criti-
cism, .^e takes into herself their very essence, which

AFTERWARDS LADY COLVIN

TRIBUTES TO LADY COLVIN

341

becomes part thenceforward of the aflSuence of her being.
Her, friends not only learn in her company how ' to
enjoy, but in her absence no very choice experience can
befall them but of her they will be reminded, and to
her involuntarily give thanks for the best part of what
they feel.

' But life itself is most truly of aH her sphere. She has
the genius of the heart, and in her own spirit a blend of
sensitiveness and high honour and fortitude which makes
of her a priceless counsellor. Comfort abounds when she
is by ; something bids all who are not ungentle, men, women,
and children, turn to her and trust her. She cools and
soothes your secret smart before ever you can name it ;
she divines and shares your hidden joy, or shames your
fretfulness with loving laughter; she unravels the per-
plexities of your conscience, and teaches you that there is
somethmg finer in you than you knew ; timorous or mean
or jealous thoughts cannot Kve in her company ; dhe fills
you not only with generous resolutions but with power to
persist in what you have resolved.

‘ In the fearlessness of her purity she can afford the frank-
ness of her affections, and shows how every fascination of
her sex may in the most open freedom be the most honour-
ably secure. Yet m a world of men and women, such an
one caimot walk without kindling once and again a danger-
ous flame bef6re she is aware. As in her nature there is no
room for vanity, she never foresees these masculine com-
bustions, but has a wonderful tact and gentleness in allaying
them, and is accustomed to convert the claims and cravings
of passion into the lifelong loyalty of grateful and contented
friendship.

‘ With her own sex she is the soul of loyalty, and women
love and trust her not less devotedly than men. She loves
to be loved, and likes to be praised ; but no amount of love
or praise can make her bdieve that there is much remark-
able about her. If she could read this testimony to her
worth she would be both pleased and moved, but’ between

342 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

smiles and tears, and somewhat of a loving shame, would
remain unconvinced though the deposition should be t>ome
by him who, owing her whatever he is worth, has the best
nght to speak, and witnessed by all the rest who, sharing
the treasure of her friendship, surround her with their just
allegiance in the next degree.’

CHAPTER XXV

THE END
1924-1927

There is little more to tell. Colvin’s health steadily
declined, and his loneliness was intensified by mcreasing
deafness. He was also subject to sudden collapses which
made jt undesirable for him to go out alone. He insisted,
however, as long as possible, on a daily walk to a neigh-
bouring florist’s, to buy flowers for the table beside Lady
Colvin’s chair, in which no one was allowed to sit. We did
what we could to induce him to have a male attendant, 'but
he refused ; he refused also to experiment with any device
for the improvement of hearing.

His letters, which he continually rearranged, and his
WiU, which he frequently altered, were a source of consola-
tion and emplo3nnent, and he read the Times and the Even-
ing Standard assiduously, as well as Pimch, the Times
Literary Supplement, and the Graphic. Disdaining circu-
lating libraries, he bought from Mr. Bain such new books
as he fancied, but was in the habit of laying them soon
aside in favour of Wordsworth and Virgil.

For a few months he played with the idea of bringing
out a new book of his own, mixed essays and criticism, but
he lacked the power to concentrate on such revision and
addition as would be necessary. The following is his list
of contents of the proposed volume : —

Penthesilea (translation from the Posthomerica of Quintus
Smymasus, with introduction about the Amazons in

344 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Hymn to Demeter (translation of the Homeric hymn, with
some comments).

* Notes on the Centaur myth (a few points only relatfhg to
a huge subject).

Maso Fmiguerra (boiled down from my big book estab-
lishing his identity for the first time).

Piero della Francesca and Luca Signorelli (reprints from
old Cornhill articles, meant to be popular .and knowledge-
able at the same time).

On Conceniration and Suggestion in Poetry (reprinted from
a pamphlet of the English Association).

Keatsiana (or some better title, meaning points concern-
ing K. which have come to light since my book).

Voices I Have Heard.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James (meaning an
article with many letters, to be reprinted fcora Scribner’s
Magazine).

Notes on Joseph Conrad (with extracts from unprinted
letters).

Frederick Walker (essay wntten in Cornhill at the time
of his death).

Of these articles, all had been printed before and were
ready, short of final revision, except the notes on Keats
and the notes on Conrad, which were never written. For
the paper on the Centaurs, which had appeared in its’original
form many years before, Colvin assembled a mass of new
material but did not arrange it.

His more intimate friends did what they could to cheer
him, among regular visitors bemg Mrs. W. K. Clifford and
her daughters. Miss Clifford and Lady Dilke, Mr. and Mrs.
J. W. Mackail, Mrs. Madan, a near neighbour, Mrs. J. L.
Garvin, Mr. Basil Champneys, Sir Eliot Colvin, Sir Edward
Elgar, Mrs, Gaskell, Mrs. Ludo Foster, Mrs. Roscoe, Mr.
and Mrs. Laurence Binyon, Mrs, Payne, Sir Robert Witt,
Mr. John Bailey, Mrs. Theodore McKenna, and of course
Dr. C. E, Wheeler, who was more than a physician both to
Colvin and to Lady Colvin.

THE END

345

Colvin wrote many letters, always in his own careful
hand. One of these, never posted, which lies before me, has its
own s?ory. Early in 1925 many, if not all, of the literary
men of England received a letter from an American school-
master, which most of them (as the adroit writer intended)
not unnaturally assumed to be addressed to themselves
only. It ran thus : —

‘January 29, 1925.

‘ Dear Sir, — ^The five hundred and more young men and
young women training for busmess in the local Senior High
School are divided into little groups of eight each. Owing
to graduation the personnel of these “ eights ” changes
from year to year.

‘ For the past three years these groups of students have
each been ^electmg one weU-known man or woman, whose
life has made an especial appeal to them, as a sort of
“ guardian,” believing that a little letter of kindly interest
from such a one would help them to do better work in
school and aid them in being better citizens m the business
world for whidi they are fitting themselves,

‘ One of these groups has taken the liberty of so choosing
you.

' I feel considerable hesitancy in troubling you for such
a letter, but I sincerely trust the time will present itself
and the mclination prompt you to send these friends of
yours a few words of greetmg.'

On my next visit to Colvin I foimd him in a state of
dehght at the honour thus paid him ; and handing me his
letter in answer, he asked if I thought that it would do.
When I said that I had received the same appeal he was
visibly depressed and withdrew his reply. I prmt it now as
an example of his pimctihousness and his attitude to life
and duty : —

* 35 Palace Gardens Terrace ^ W, 8, 12.1x.25.

' Dear Sir, — W riting in my Both year and from a sick-
room, I cannot return much except bald thanks t© you.

346 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

and to the young men and women students on whose behalf
•you write, for their wish that I should send some words
of greeting in acknowledgment of their kind tfioughts
about me,

' The best advice I can give from my own experience is —
In all your thoughts and actions accustom yourselves to be
guided by any motive rather than the desire of your own
success. To beat others in the competition of life is not
half so interesting as to throw yourself into causes and
interests which he outside the question of your own success
or failure : and of such the world is fuU. This is not to
say, do not do anything short of your best m any depart-
ment of life or work to which you may be called : but do
it for the best’s sake and not for the reward’s sake nor. for
the sake of victory. My own life, so far as I am capable of
judging it, has been instinctively lived on this principle : the
source of the instinct having no doubt been my father, who
.was the most beautifully unselfish and kindhearted of men.

‘ To break for a moment the habit of privacy which I
am accustomed to observe concerning my own affairs, I
am going out of the world a poorer man in money than I
came into it ; but may not that hfe count itself a rich one
whidi won such a world’s treasure as my wife for its own,
and such a friendship — to name the foremost^ and most
famous among many — as that of Louis Stevenson ? — Yours
faithfully, Sidney Colvin '

Now and then he would hire a car for a country ride
through districts round London which he had known in
his youth ; but he always returned somewhat saddened by
the changes that time had wrought : where he had known
trees and meadows, finding nothing but bricks and mortar.
On one of the last of such excursions I accompanied him —
to Ken Wood, the preservation of which was the final
enthusiasm of his hfe. To attain this end he worked hard,
in public and private letters; as I am sure Sir Arthur
Crosfield, the prime mover, would testify.

THE END

347 ■

I did what I could to tea.ch him one or two simple forms
of Patience ; but in vain. He would not learn : partly, T
suspect, because his heart was with Backgammon, which he
and Lady Colvin had played almost every evening of their
married life and possibly longer.

As he grew feebler his memory became so bad that he
often related the same incident or asked advice on the same
point as many aa three times during a single visit. One
thing that he had much on his mind, which I am sure I
heard in identical words thirty times, I take pleasure in
recordmg, and that was his expression of gratitude to his
servants — ^Edith Mattocks, Bessie Went (the daughter of
his father’s coachman), and Agatha Trist — for their care of
him. No one, he used to say, ever could have had greater
consideration or kindness.

To the last he wooed sleep by reciting passages from the
poets, for his memory, although so unresponsive to what
occurred yesterday, could reproduce with faithfulness all
that he had seen or learned in the remote period of his
youth : so much so that when he was in particularly low
spirits I used to find that a few questions as to his Suffolk
or Cambridge or early London days would quickly restore
his serenity and even get him into a state of glow. He
would describe Edward FitzGerald as he was accustomed
to see him in his shawl about Woodbridge, a rather frighten-
ing figure to chfidish eyes ; ojreter feasts at Ipswich when
a shilling a hundred was the price and you wadied them down
with Felix Cobbold's stout ; or, passing to a later time,
he would talk vividly about those strange creatures, Simeon
Sotomon and Charles Augustus HoweU. As he returned
more and more to the early times I noticed an mcreased old-
fashionedness in his maimer ; towards the end his ‘ thank-
you ’ was ‘ thankee ’ unalloyed.

For the last two years he never took leave of me at the
door — for it was his courteous custom, when wdl enough,
to conduct me thither in person— without saying that I
diould not find him there next week ; and he was; I am ^

348 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

sure, disappointed as, momiijg after morning, the long
night over, he was conscious that he was still a^jve and
alone.

Sidney Colvin died, in his eighty-second year, on May ii,
1927. After cremation, his remains were laid beside those
of his wife and her younger son in the cemetery at the end
of Church Row, Hampstead. On the tombstone, which
was designed by Mr. Basil Champneys, was incised, by
Colvin’s wish, the passage from Cicero’s De Seneciute
which runs thus in English : ‘ Whatever is natural must be
accounted good. When death comes to youth, Nature is
up in arms and revolts. Yet to old men, what is more
natural than d3dng ? ’

At St. Martin-in-the-Fields a memorial service was held.
I quote the Times list of those who attended : ‘ Colonel andMrs
J. M. C. Colvin and Miss Camilla Colvin, Miss Brenda Colvin,
Mrs. Atwood Colvin, Miss Louise De V. Colvin, Miss Nella
.Colvin, Sir Arthur Pinero, Sir Martin Conway, Lady Jekyll,
Lady Dilke, Sir Frederic Kenyon, Major-General Sir Louis
Jackson, Sir Charles Bayley, Sir Albert Gray, Sir Frederick
Macmillan, Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Binyon, Mr. Lionel Cust,
Professor A. R. Forsyth, Dr. and the Hon. Mrs. Dawtrey
Drewitt, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, Mrs. F. Pa3me, Miss Mary
Dunlop Smith, Mr. Selwsm Image, Mrs. W. B. .Gladstone,
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gibson, Mr. Percy Anderson, Mr. L. F.
Schuster, Sir Israel GoUancz, the Hon. Mirs. Taddeo Wiel,
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sturgis, Mr, Geoffrey S, Williams, Mr.
A. R. Hogg, Lady (Edward) Bradford, Sir Charles Holmes
(representing the National Gallery), Mr. J. P. Heseltine,
Mrs. Theodore McKeima, Mr. H. W. Carrington (represent-
ing the Robert Louis Stevenson Club), Mr. Donald Macbeth,
Mr, Alec Martin (hon, secretary, representing the National
Art Collections Fund), Mr. Henry Oppenheimer, Mr. Alfred
Yockney, Mr. Arund^ Esdaile, Mrs. Cardake Bovill, Mr.
Edmund Brocklebank, Professor A. M. Hind (representing
the British Museum), Mr. Campbell Dodgson, Mr. E, V.
Eucas, Mr. J. D. Gilson, Dr. D. S. MacCol, Mrs. Porter,

THE END

349

Mrs. J, L. Garvin, Mrs. Geoffrey Madan, and Mr. Arthur
YaUop JVigg.’

Among the many testimonies to Colvin’s sterling char-
acter and distmction as a scholar, critic, and administrator,
which Were pnnted in the papers, I quote only from one,
with its more personal note, by his friend J. L. Garvin,
in the Observer. Under the title ‘ A Perfect Friend,’ Mr.
Garvin wrote thus*: ' At fourscore and two almost, Sidney
Colvin, like Southey, has died amongst his books. Even
the books, well-known and well-beloved, had become
shadows in a world of shadows. His disappearance severs
the personal link between this second quarter of the twen-
tieth century and things so long ago that no man left living
remembers them. Suppose we were talking of Mitford, the
historian of •Greece, who died m 1827 at nearly the same
age. Mitford could recoUect the heyday of Chatham and
Washington and Pitt and Fox ; and of Johnson, Burke,
Gibbon, Sheridan, Goldsmith, to name but a few. Colvin’s,
memories were better, for his nature enriched them.

‘ His own work was good in several ways and part of it
ad m irable. But his name will live longest for a different
reason. He gave the best of his life to others, and his devo-
tion was a legend. The record of “ the irritable race of
writers ” is full of wounded vanities, real and imaginary
offences, susoeptible egotisms, feeling pin-pricks like poisoned
stilettos ; spites* and grudges ; grotesque misunderstand-
ings and rancorous haUucinations. Literary history knows
nothing to surpass Sidney Colvin’s lifelong example of
staunch and efftcient unselfishness. As a boy he was steeped
in Spenser, and that explained him. He meant to hve for
chivalry and the sense of beauty. As to ethics, though he
was no orthodox believer, unselfishness was the essence of
his code and the truth of his practice.

‘ To Stevenson he was the “ perfect friend.” Taking it
for all and ah, and reckoning a fine discipline of feehng that
cannot be fully valued until things yet unpublished are
revealed, no writer ever owed more to another man through

350 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

twenty years of life, and tlirougli more years after death,
than Stevenson owed to this elder brother in letters. Qolvin’s
other and greater distinction was that he married one of
the wonderful women of her time. His Spenserian dedi-
cation to her looked to the foolish like a rather old-fashioned,
square-toed attentiveness. It belonged in fact to the fibres
of his being and to his inmost notion of a gentleman. A
little exact and punctilious in his marftiers, the feelings
behind them were often Quixotic. His wife was no Dulcinea,
but as like Minerva with a heart as any mortal woman
may be.’

Mr. Hugh Walpole’s tribute, written for this book, I
print in full at this point, not only for its fine quality and
summarizing value, but because it expresses what many
young men must have felt in their relation to these two
sympathetic elderly encouragers : ' It was one of the great
pieces of good fortune in my life that the Colvins were among
my first friends in London. The customary phrase to use
about people who during their lifetime were very popular
is that they had a genius for friendship ; it is a term more
nusused than almost any other, but for once it must be said.
Friendship isn’t an easy habit in these hurried noisy days ;
and to have many friends, to give each one an individual
colour so that not only do you seem to be dealing with them
as though they were unique in yoiu life but your do actually
make them unique, this is a gift of the farest and most
precious. It was the supreme gift that the Colvins possessed.

‘ They were fortunate, I think, in being perfect comple-
ments the one of the other ; they were alike in their enthu-
siasm and generosity of heart, and their passionate mutual
love gave them a beautiful unity, but they were quite
separate in their approach to hfe. Colvin was traditional ;
it is well known of course that he was always on the look-
out for new talent in art and letters ; but what he liked
was a new talent with old roots, and in the conduct of hfe
he Was ah, for the traditions, perfect courtesy, an unflinch-
ing code of honour, decent manners and a certain avoidance

THE END

351

of the crudities that modem life seemed to him to be too
fond o^ emphasizing.

‘ Lady Colvin was with him in her love for fine courtesies
and honourable dealing, but beyond these she had a deep
understanding of all the complexities of modem life ; you
could not tell Colvin everything, because to shock him was
to hurt him too deeply ; but there was nothing that you
could not tell to hfer.

' She was not at all the sweet gentle white-haired old lady.
With her passionate interest m ever 3 rthmg, her fiery partisan-
ship, as ^e sat there in her chair, the inevitable feather boa
round her neck Kke a banner, the most exciting thing in
life seemed always just to have happened to her. The
astonishing thing was that the exciting event, when you
came to hear of it, was some thing that had occurred to
someone else rather than to herself. We all know that we
spend most of our days in listening to the adventures of
our friends and longing for the moment to amve when we.
shall be able to sHp in a word of our own affairs ; but in
her case she joined so eagerly in the experiences of other
people that you were amazed that she had time or energy
left for her own. She was a terrible trap for egoists, and
yet always after you had told her of your own adventures
you caught from her a sense of the excitement of other
people’s an6 that did your egoism good.

‘ Because her bwn personal life had been in its early days
a tragic one there was nothing m the Hfe of another that
she could not understand. Her curiosity was never greedy ;
she loved to hear all the details but passed on from them
always to give fully her pity, her admiration, her praise
and te irony.

' This is certainly true of her : that beyond anyone else
I have over known die had the gift of telling you that you
had been a fool without humiliating you. My own first
meeting with them was in their house at the Museum ; a
very remarkable evening for me because at that dinner-
party I met for the first time two or three people who were

352 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

to be among my best and most enduring friends. It was
exciting for me too because only a short while befqjre the
Reading Room at the Museum had been my only place of
resort ; there I used to sit the day long, knowing no one,
wondering whether I ever would, and then only a few
months later withm the walls of the same building all doors
were open to me.

' Colvin with his fine taste, and his bringing, as perhaps
no one at that time save Sir Edmund Gosse did, the space
between the old world of letters and the new, was an ideal
friend for me ; and looking back now I wonder at the
patience with which he listened to my infant prattle and
accepted gravely my juvenile dogmatisms. It was very
exciting to me ^o to have for a friend someone who had
known Stevenson and Henley, Browning and George Eliot,
Tennyson and Pater so intimately ; who, although he had
known these men, yet felt that there was something in
the new generation too.

‘Robert Ross once said that Lady Colvin played the
Cabot to Sidney Colvin's Columbus. They were teased
so.metimes, I think, about their eager quest for new talent,
but it is a pity for the young generation to-day that there
is nobody now, so honest and so generous, engaged on that
same task.

' But Lady Colvin cared more for the person than for the
talent. Without ever interfering, without fever demanding
anything, without a reproach for neglect or a sign of per-
sonal hurt, she loved her friends always for what they were
getting rather than for what they were giving her.

‘ When she was disappointed she found gallant reasons
for defending the disappointer. She was by nature sharply
perceptive ; no one ever had a quicker eye for little snob-
beries, falsdioods, disloyalties ; but by some especial gift
of her own she converted these mean things, although she
never denied that they were mean, into a general inevitable
pattern of life. '

* Colvin was more sentimental than she, and if Something'

THE END

353

looked ugly he would push it away and turn his back upon
it, although his loyalty to his' friends was quite as true
and ^eadfast as hers , but she shrank from nothing, ajnd
there never has been anyone who more truly, wMe die
regretted the sin, loved the sinner.

' She had to the last that certain stamp of a great char-
acter, an eager acceptance of the whole of life. Every little
pleasure was exiting to her ; she was like a child going
to the world for the first time over a new play, a new book,
a new picture. Great men like Henry James and Conrad
found her the easiest companion because while she admired
their genius she raised them as human beings on to no
kind of pedestal. No one inspired her with awe, but no
one rejoiced more completely in the fine things that her
friends' did.

' Lastly, to me her greatest quality of all was her tender-
ness. \^^en you have been hurt or done something foolish
or said some foolish word it is very hard to find a friend who
will listen to the event without rising a little in his or her
own estimation. The hardest thmgs in the world are to
give sympathy without mawkishness, to give advice without
arrogance, but Lady Colvin in her concern over the event
forgot herself and all personal reaction.

‘ She was a very great woman because she loved without
sdfishne&,* was intelligent without predousness, laughed
at life without* cruelty and had great prindples of conduct
without pnggishness.’

I am glad to be able to add to Mr. Walpole's tribute the
words of an American writer whom I have already quoted
in this book. Referring to the collection of letters to Colvin
and his'wife, recently sold, Mr. Christopher Morley wrote:
' Even if pne had not already known it by personal memory
and gratitude,' one can divine what rare hospitality of
spirit yras in the two Colvins that caused so many to come
to them witib. trust and homage. Sidney was always a
knightly name.’ . ■

Mr. Walpole and Mr. Morley are among the Colvins,’
z

354 the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

later friends. Let me bring this volume to a close with the
words of one who had known them nearly sixty years,
Mr. Basil Champneys : ' I gratefully record that my mend-
ship with the Colvins lasted and was strengthened to the
very end ; that in retrospect the two are so closely united
as to form one almost indistinguishable memory of what
has counted among the special boons an^ privileges of a
lifetime.'

INDEX

Aberdare, Lord, lip, i

Academy, The, 22. * !

Acland, Sir Henry Wentworth, 190.
Adam, Madame Edmond, 75, 76,
Admtral Gmnea (Stevenson), 234
Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, 68.
Ainger, Canon, 12.

Albert Memorial, 48.

An Inland Voyage (Stevenson), 104.

, Anderson, Percy, 30, 348
Anmn§ Bell, R., 235, 237
Archer, Wifliam, 164, 165. |

Argyll, the Duke of, 190 |

Arnold, Matthew, 190 I

Letter to Colvin on his L%Je of\
Keats, 192-194
Astley, Vice-Admiral, 190.
AihencBum, The, 120.

Athenaeum Club, 105.

Aubry, G. Jean, 302.

Austin, Alfred, 157,

Babington, Professor Churchill, 53

, Mrs. Churchill, letter from

R. L. S to, 153.

Bailey, JoJin, 191, 344.

and Colvih’s Lije of Keats, 325.
Baker, Harold, iji.

Balfour, Dr., 174.

, Arthur J. (afterwards the

Earl of), 190, 191.

Sir Graham, 106, 231, 257,

258, 260, 264, 275, 329.
Balmoral, Gladstone at, 72,

Barmg, Major the Hon. Maunce,
191.

letter to Colvin on his Life of
Keats, 323,

Bame, Sir James, 191, 244*
letter to Colvin on We%r of Her-
m%ston, 248.

letter to Colvin on R. L. S.'s
Letters, 250.

letter to Lady Colvin on Colvin's
knighthood, 294-295.

Barry, Sheil, 130.

Bateson, W., 191,

Baxter, Charles, 93, 132, 232, 241.
letters from Colvin to, 233, 234,
236.

Bayley, Sir Charles, 348.

Beau Austin (Stevenson and Hen-
ley)» 233 i 234.

Benson, A C., 191.

Binyon, Laurence, 344, 34S.
on Colvin at the British Museum,
181-184.

, Mrs. Laurence, 344, 348.

Bismarck, 48.

Boehm, J. E , 190.

Bone, Muirhead, 30
Bookman, The, article in, 289-291.
Boughton, George, 30.

BoviU, Mrs. Carslake, 348.

Bowen, C. S C., 190.

Bowles, Wilham Lisle, 190.
Bradford, Lady (Edward), 348.
Bnght, John, 336
Brocklebank, Edmund, 348,

Brooke, Stopford, 58, 64.

Browning, Oscar, letter to Colvin on
his Life of Keats, 325-328.

, Robert, 101-104, 300.

letter to Colvin on his of
Keats, 196.
voice of, 334.

Bryce, James (afterwards Lord),
47 -

Buchanan, Robert, 45.

Burne-Jones, Edward, 30, 104.
Colvin on, 32.

and Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell, 32-
42.

letters to Colvin and Mrs, Sitweh,
21, 35-41.

Memorials of, 42,
letter to Mrs. Sitwell on the death
of R. L. S., 238.

Phihp, letters to Mrs, Sitwell,

38.41, 152.

m

356 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Burton, Sir Frederick,

ButcW, Henry, 9.

Butler, Dr. Montagu, letter to Col-
vin on his speech, 300-301.
Byron, Lord, 82.

Caine, Hall, X05.

Caldecott, Randolph, 30
Cambndge, Colvin at, 5, 9-12.
Canterbury, the Archbishop of
(Most Rev. Randall Thomas
Davidson), 191.

letter to Colvin on his speech, 301.
Carlingford, Lord, 190.

Carlisle, Earl of. See Howard,
George.

, Rosalind, Countess of, 19, 72.

letters to Colvin, 19, 19-20, 65,
85* 97- ^

letter to Mrs. Sitwell, 64
CarlyWs Life %n London (Froude),
x88.

Carnarvon, the Earl of, 1 58, 190.
Carr^ Comyns, 105,

Camngton, H. W., 348.

Catnona (Stevenson), 199,
Chamberlain, Sir Austen, 296
fetter to Colvin on Lady Colvin^s
death, 339.

Champneys, Basil, 8, 32, 47, 84, 89,
90, 191, 290, 344.

Colvin’s tombstone designed by,

348*

friendship with the Colvins, 354.
Chance (Conrad), Colvin’s review of,
304.

Chardin, Colvm on, 22-24.

Chartens, the Hon. Evan, 191.
Chesterton, G. K., letter to Colvin
on his forthcoming mamage,
288.

Children^ in Italian and English
Design (Colvm), 2X.
Cholmondeley, Mary, letter to Col-
vin on Ins forthcoming mar-
riage, 288.

Church, Dean, X34, 190,

Claietie, Jules, 77.

Clark, Sir Andrew, 47, 70, 94*

J. W., xo,

, W. G., 10.

Clatyton, John, 123, 124*

Clifford, W.K., 47.

voice of, 336.

, Mass, 344.

Clifford, Mrs. W. K., 344, 348.
on Colvin’s marnage to Mrs. Sit-
well, 289-291,

Cobbold, Felix, 9.

Cockfield Rectory, 53, 66-67,
Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice, 190,

332-333*

Colher, Miss Constance, 302,

Colvin, Mrs. Atwood, 348.

Bassett David, father of Sid-
ney Colvmf 1-4,
death of, 19.%
miniature of, 31.

Miss Brenda, 348.

Miss Camilla, 348.

, Miss Louise De V., 348.

Sir Ehot, 344.

Colonel and Mrs. J. M. C.,

34^*

Lady (see under Sitwell, Mrs ).^

, Miss Nella, 348.

Sir Sidney, birth, •!.

Suffolk, early days m, 1-5,
on Whistler, 13
his first publication, 14.
on Albert Moore, 14.
on Frederick Walker, 15.
on the Dutch School, 15,
on Velasquez, 16.
on Reynolds, 16.
on Gainsborough, 17.
on Millais, 17-18.

I Dilettanti, election to the Society
: of, 18.

I on Degas, 20-2 x.
on Chardin, 22-24.
as Slade Professor at Cambridge,
24» 27-30.
on Ruskin, 25-5?7.
art possessions of, 30.
and Rossetti, 42-46.
on the Albert Memorial, 48.
portrait of, by Theodore Roussel*
47, 294.

and the Franco-Frussian War, 49.
review by, t>ij[menius Mmdh 74.
in Paris, 75, 76, 77, X04, X26.
letters to Henley, 76, X2o, X22,
125, 127, X33, 151, X56, X57-
159, x6o, x 62, X64.
in Greece, 78-80.

FitzwiHiam Museum, director of,
96.

article by, in Fall M&M Gaxeita,
X05*

INDEX

357

Colvm, Sir Sidney — continued Colvin, Sir Sidney — continued*,

note on R L. S., Mrs. R* L. S., letter from Henley, 255.

Henley, by, 106-107 letter from Henry Sidgwick, 255.

ana the * English Men of Letters comparison of Henry James and
Senes,' 125. R. L S., 267-271

verses by, 129. letter to E. V. Lucas, 271-272

his Landor m the ' Enghsh Men letters from Henry James, 272-
of Letters Senes,' 134-147* 280, 282-284.

character sketch of Mrs R L. S article in the D N B on R. L. S..

by, 148-149.
on Deacon Brodi\ 158.
on Black Arrow, ¥59
on Sargent's portrait of R. L. S ,
165.

his Keats in the ‘ Enghsh Men of
Letters Senes,' 176,177, 191-196.
at the Bntish Museum, 180-184.
collections purchased for the
British Museum by, 182.

British Museum home of, 184-185
letter from J. McNeiU Whistler,

1^9 •

and the Literary Society, 190-191
letters from Mrs R L Stevenson,
209-213, 222-231, 257, 258, 259,
261, 263, 264,

letter to Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell
from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson,
213-215.

as London representative of
R..L. S , 232-237
on the first mght of Beau Austin,

233

letters to Charles Baxter, 233,
234, 236.

letter from Mrs Fleeming Jenkin
on iC L. S 's death, 238,
letter from S. R. Lysaght on
R. L. S.'s death, 239
letter from Mrs. T Stevenson on
R L S 's death, 240-242.
on the Vathnia Letters, 242-243
letter from Andrew Lang on the
Vailma Letters, 243-244.
letters from W E Henley on
We%r of Hermision, 244-248
letter from Sir J, M Barrie on
Weir ofBermtston, 248
letter from Henry James on Wetr
of Hermtston, ,248-250.

Sir J. M, Bame on R. L. S 's
Letters, 250

article on, by W. H Low, 252.
letter from Sir Arthur QuiUer-
Couch, 254-255.

by, 277-278
accident to, 281.

letter from Henry James on his
forthcoming marriage, 286.
letter from Meredith on his forth-
coming marriage, 287.
letter from Mrs Richmond Ritchie
on his forthcoming marriage,
287.

Mrs W K. Chfford on the mar-
riage of, 289-291

letter from Henry James on his
marriage, 289.

and Stephen Philhps, 292-293.
letter from Rudyard Kiphng, 294.
Hon Degrees conferred on, 293.
member of various Societies, 293-
294-

letter from Lord Milner on
Rotissel's portrait of, 294.
kmghthood of, 294
Letters ofRL S., edited by, 295.
retirement from the British
Museum, 295-296.
banquet to, 296.

on management of museums, 296-
297

painting, views on development
of, 297-299.

letter from Dr. Butler on speech
by, 300-30 X,

letters from Joseph Conrad, 302-
309, 31:6, 337-
review by, of Chance, 304.
on R L. S. and Conrad, 308-309.
letters from Perceval Gibbon, 309-

311*

last home of, 307
Life of Keats by, 312.
lecture on Concentration in Poetry
by, 313-316
and the War, 318
letters from Thomas Hardy on his
Life of Keats, 318-320
suggestions from W. P* Ker on his
Life of Keats, 320-323*,

358 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Colvitt, Sir Sidney — tontinmd,
letter from John Morley on his
Life of Keats, 324.
letter from Lord Tennyson on his
Life of Keats, 325,
publication of Memorus and
Notes, 328-329.

visit of, to E. V Lucas' house at
Tillington, 328

letters from Maurice Hewlett on
Memories and Notes, 329-330,
letter from Thomas Seccombe on
Memories and Notes, 330-331.
Famous Voices, by, 33ii-33<>*
letter from Lord Crewe on Lady
Colvm's death, 339.

Lady Colvin, character sketch of,
by, 339“34^*

proposed book by, 343’-344*
declining years of, 343-34^.
creed of, 346.
and Ken Wood, 346.
his servants, 347.
death and funeral of, 348,
article on, by J. L. Garvm, 349-
350,

tnbute to, by Hugh Walpole, 350-
353,

tnbute to, by Christopher Morley,
353.

and Basil Champneys, 354.
Concentration, Meredith's phrase on,
3i3«

Colvin's lecture on, 312,

Conrad, Borys, 305. '

Mrs. Jessie, 306, 317.

•, Joseph, 30, 300.

letters to Colvin from, 302-309,
337 *

on One Day More, 302-303.
on Colvin's review of Chance,
304,

on Colvin's review of Victory, 304-

305*

health of, 304, 305, 306, 307.
on The Rescue, 306, 307.
on the prospective writing of
, Mmmes and Notes, 305, 306.
alter the receipt of Memories and
Notes, 307*308.
and K. L. S., 308-309.
d^th of, 309.
on Perceval Gibbon, 309.
on Colvin's Lecture on Concen-
tratiem, 3rO-3X7.

Conway, Sir Martin, 27, 296, 348
onColvm as Slade Professor, 27-30.
Coquelm, Jean (cadet), 76, 12^.
Corbett, Julian, 191.

Craik, G. L., 47.

Crane, Walter, 41,

Crawford, Marion, 277.

Crewe, Lord, 191, 296, 330
letter to Colvin on Lady Colvm's
death, 339. ^

Crosfield, Sir Armur, 346,

Curzon of KedlSsion, Lord, letters
to Colvm from, 293, 294, 3x7.
Cust, Lionel, 18, 27, 348.

Dalhousie, the Earl of, 190.

Dalou, Jules, 31.

Davidson, Most Hev. Randall
Thomas {see Canterbury, Arch-
bishop of).

Dawson, Geolfrcy, 191. ^

de Mattes, Katherine, 1(^7, 168,
Deacon Brodie (Henley and Steven-
son), 107, 108, 1 13, 122, 124.
Colvin on, 158,

R. L S.'s opinion of, 234.

Degas, Colvin on, 20-21.

Denman, Mr Justice, 190
Dictionary of National Biography,
ref. to Colvin's article on K. L S.
in the, 277-278,

DtUiianli, History of the Society oj
(edited by Colvin), iH.
Dilettanti, Society of, 18-19,

Dilke, Lady, 344, 348,

Dobson, Austin, 131. *

Dr» Jehyll and Mr, Hyde (Steven-
son), anecdote Joy R. L. S. on,
172.

Dodgson, Campbell, 348.

Doyle, Ricliard, 36.

Drewitt, Dr. and the Hon, Mrs.

Dawtrey, 348.

Drouet, Madame, 77.

Dttfierm and Ava, the Marquess of,
47, X90.

Egoist, The (Mercditli), 201, ao6,
Elgar, Sir Edward, 344.

EHot, George, 50-52, 77, 97.

Elliot, Arthur, igt.

Empire Review, The, 148.
letters reprinted from, 69-71, ^5-
94 ‘

review by Colvin in, 267-271*

INDEX

359

English Life, article in, on Lady
Colvin's death, 338,

English Painters of the Present Day,
(iolvin as contributor to, 17
English Review, 329
Equator, the R. L Stevensons on
board the, 230
Esdaile, Arundell, 348.

Ewing, J A (afterwards Sir Alfred
Ewing), 196.

Famous Voices I move Heard (Col-
vin), 332-336.

Femer, Miss, 166.

Fetherstonhaugh, Cuthbert (Lady
Colvin’s brother), 54-63, 260-
261.

family, the, 53-65

Fisher, Herbert, 191.

FitzGerald, Edward, 12, 347.
Fitzwilham Museum, 30, 96.
Flaxman, George* 98.

Flower, I^ofessor, 190
Ford, H J,27

Forsyth, Professor A R , 348.
Fortnightly Review, 13, 22.

Foster, Mrs Ludovic, 344
Foster, Michael, 47.

Freshfield, Douglas, letter to Colvin
on Meredith and Rossetti, 207-
208.

Froud%, James Anthony, 188, 190.
Fry, Roger, 297.

Gainsborough, Colvin on, 17
Gaisford, Thomas, 81
Galton,*Snr Douglas, 190, 191
Gambetta, L6on, 75-77* 336.
Garschine, Madame, 88, 91,

Garvin, J L , 31.
article on Lady Colvin by, 337-333
article on Colvm by, 349-350.

, Mrs J. L., 140, 344. 349

Gaskell, Mrs , 344.

Gibbon, Perceval, Conrad on, 309.
letters to Colvin from, 309-31 1.
journalistic days of, 310, 31 1,
death of, 311

Gibson, Mr, and Mrs, Frank, 348,
Gifford, Wilham, 190,

Gilson, J. D., 348.

Gissmg, George, 279, 280.
Gladstone, 72, 7S“75* 336.

Colvin’s review of Juventus
Mmdi, by, 74-

Gladstone, Mrs W. B., 348.

Glehn, Miss von, 156.

Globe, The, 14, 15,

GoUancz, Sir Israel, 348.

Gosse, Sir Edmund, 155, 329, 352.
letter to Mrs SitweU on her forth-
coming marriage, 287.

Graham, Captain Harry, 19 1.
Grant-Duff, Sir M, E,, igo.

Gray, Sir Albert, 348.

Green, J. R, 64

Greenwood, Frederick, 15, 47, 105,
115, 116.

Gngg, Sir Edward, 191
Grove, George, 69.

Hali. 6, Charles, 39.

Halhday, Andrew, 115.

Hamerton, Phihp Gilbert, 18, 69.
Hamilton, Sir Ian, 19 1.

Hamley, General E B , 190,
Hammond, Basil, 162.

Hanging Judge, The (Mr. and Mrs.

R. L. Stevenson), 209, 210, 247.
Harcourt, Sir Wilham Vernon, 47,
297-

Hardy, Gathome, 190.

Thomas, 161, 300.

letters to Colvin on Keats, 318-
320

Haweis, H. R., 64,

Henley, W. E , 14, 76, 94, 166, 232,
234-

Hospital Poems by, 95, 115.
letters to Colvm, 108-111, 114,
115-120,^122, 124, 130-132, 255.
letter to Colvm on his Landor,

135-139

letter from Colvin on the illness
of Mrs Sitwell’s son, 151,
letters from Colvin to, 156, 157-
159, 160, 162.

letters to Colvin on Weir of Her»
miston, 244-248

Her Infinite Variety (Lucas), 339.
Herbert, Auberon, 47.

Heseltme, J. P., 348.

Hewlett, Maunce, letters to Colvm
on Memories and Notes, 329-

330*

his opimon of Colvin, 330.
death of, 330.

Hind, Professor A M., 183, 348.
History of Painting, A (edited by
Colvin), 105.

36 o the COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Hogg, A. R , 348.

Hole, Dean, 271.

Holmes, Sir Charles, 348,

Houghton, Lord, 96*

Howard, George, Earl of Carhsle,
9 , 18, 37, 72-73
letter to Colvin, 100.
letter to Colvm on the R. L. S,
Letters, 250.

Howell, Charles Augustus, 347.
Hugo, Victor, 75, 77, 33^*

Hunt, Leigh, 320, 327,

Hutton, R H.. 47*

Huxley, Professor, 190.

Image, Selwyn, 348,

Irving, Henry, 110, 113, 115.

Jackson, Major-General Sir Louis,
348

James, Henry, i6o, x6i, 162, 166,
167, 170, 171, 190, 244, 258,
290,

letter to Colvin on Weir of Her-
mtston, 248-230.
death of, 267.

review by Colvin on R. L. S. and,
267-271.

characteristics of, 269-270
letters to Colvin, i68, 272-280,
282-284.

on Mrs R. L. Stevenson, 276
letters to Mrs, Sitwell, 276, 28 1,
282.

his love of London, 276, 281.
on the proposed Life of R, L. S.,
277-278.

on R. L. S.*s Letters, 278.
on Colvm^s marriage, 280.
on his article on R. L. S., 281.
on the four-vol. ed. of R. L. S.'s
Letters, 283-284.

letter from R. L. S. to, on Mere-
dith, 285.

letter to Mxb, Sitwell on her forth-
conung marriage, 286,
letter to Colvm, 286.
wedding present to Colvin and
Sitwell from, 286-287,
letter to Colvin on his marriage,
289.

letter to Mrs, Colvin after her
wedding, 29X.

Jami NicoU, R. L, S.'s cruise in the,
23:5, 2x6, 2x9, 220, 226,

Jebb, Richard C., 9, 47. 90, 97, 134,
i9q.

Jekyll, Lady, 348.

Jenkin, Flceming, 47, 173, 331#
letter to Colvin on his Landor,

141-144.

the Papers of, iq 6.
and R L. S , 196.
charactenstics of, 197-X98.

, Mrs. Fleeining, 111-X12, 163,

166 £

and R L S., rx2
letter to Colvin on the death of
R. L. S., 238.

John, Augustus, 30.

John Ingicsani (Shorthouse), 38.

jowett. Professor, 199.

Jmentus Mundi (Gladstone), Col-
vin's review of, 74.

Kalakua, 214.

Keats, John, m the ' English Men of
Letters Senes/i 76, 177. 191-196.
passages from Colvin's first book
on, 192, 194,

Letters of, edited by Colvm, 19S.
Colvin's Life of, 312, 318-325.

Kemble, John Phihp, 190.

Ken Wood, 346.

Kenyon, Sir Frederic, 34S.
letter to Colvin on his retirement
from the British Museuixf, 295

Ker, W. Pu 191.

suggestions to Colvin on his Life
of Keats, 320-323.

Key, Cooper, 190.

Kiphng, Rudyard, letter Colvm
from, 294.

Landor, Waiter Savage, 125, 128,

! X34‘‘i47*

Lang, Andrew, letters to Colvin, 117,
191, 244,

on Colvin's first book on Keats,

X96.

death of, 198.

personal appearance of, 198.
letters to Colvin with regard to
Stevenson, Lockhart, and
Keats, 199-200.
on the Cock Lane ghost, 200.
letter to Colvin on the VaiUma
Letters, 243-244.

letter to Colvin on R. L. S/s
Letters, 230,

INDEX 361

Lankester, E. Ray, 47.

Lay Morals (Stevenson), .Henry
Sidgwick on, 255.

Lecky. William E. H„ 190.

Leighton, Sir Fredenc, 30, 56, 96.

Letters of John Keats, edited by
Colvm, 198.

Lewes, George Henry, 77

, M. E, {see Ehot, George).

Liddon, Dean, 190, 1 91

Life^ of Keats, let^rs on Colvin*s,
SiS-SiO. 320“3i8
John Bailey on, 325,

Life and Letters of Joseph Conrad
(edited by G, Jean Aubry),

302

L%fe and Letters of Robert Browning
(Mrs. Sutherland Orr), 104.

Literary Society, origin and mem-
bers of, 190- 191.

Colvin's association with, 190-191.

Little ^eaivigs, Colvin's early home,
1-4, 8, 19, 20.

Little Tour in Ireland (Dean Hole),
271.

Lives of the Painters (Cunningham),
287,

Llanthony Abbey, Landor at, 128.

Locker-Lanmson, Frederick, 190.
letter to Colvm on his first book
on Keats, 195.

Lockhart, John Gibson, 198.

Lockroy, Edouard, 77.

Lockyer, Norman, 47

Loftus, * Cissie,* letter to Colvin on
R. L. S.’s Letters, 253-254.

Low, Wiii.H , letter to Colvin on
R. L. S.’s Letters, 251-252.
article on Colvm, 252.

Lowell, James Russell, 96.

Lubbock, Sir John, 190.

Lucas, E. V„ 191, 348.
letter from Colvin to, 271-272.
verses by, 299.

Colvin’s stay at home of, 32S.

Her Infinite Variety, edited by,
539,

ludgaie Bilh K. L. S.'s voyage m
the, J 77 » 309*

Lynd, Robert, 328.

Lysaght, S. R., letter to Colvin on
me death of R. L. S., 239.

Lytton, Lord. 190.

Lyttelton, Alfred, tS 8 , and see Laura
Tennant*

Macaire (Stevenson and Henley's
play), 113.234.

Macbeth, Donald, 348.

MacCoU, Dr. D. S., 348.

Maccoll, Norman, 119, 120.

Mackail, Mr. and Mrs. J. W., 344

Macmillan, Sir Frederick, 348.

Madan, Mrs , 344, 349.

Magee, Bishop, 190.

Martin, Alec, 348.

Mathews, J. Brander, 131.

Mattocks, Edith, 347.

M’Kenna, Mrs. Theodore, 344, 348.

Memories and Notes (Colvm), ex-
tracts from, 1-8, 10, 23-27, 33,
42-45. 50-52, 66-67, 67-68, 72-
74. 75-76. 77. 7S-82, 85, 96-97,
101-103, 111-112, 177, 197-198,
201-205, 308-309.

Conrad on the prospective writing
ol. 305-306

Conrad after the receipt of, 307-
308.

pubhcation of, 328-329.

Meredith, George, 201-208, 300, 331.
personal appearance of, 201.
as a walker, 202.
conversation of, 202-203.
and R. L. S , 201.
poems of, 204-205.
letters to Mrs. Sitwell, 205-206.
death of, 206

review by Mrs. Sitwell in the
National Review, 206-207.

R. L, S. on, 285.

letter to Colvin on his forth-
coming wedding, 287.
the reading aloud of, 312
obscurities in poems of, 313,
316.

Conrad's views on the verses of,
316-317

characteristics of, 334-335.

Meunce, Paul, 77.

Millais, Sir J. E., 17-18.

Milner, Lord, letter to Colvin on his
portrait by Roussel, 294.

Moore, Albert, 14.

, George, letters to Colvin on

his Landor, and on Stevenson,

145-147-

Morley, Christopher, visits of, to
Colvin's Bntish Museum home,
300.

tribute to the Colvins by, 353.

362 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Morley, John (afterwards Lord),
g \ 13. 47. 125*

letters to Colvin from, 48-49, 97,
99, 100, 104, 105, 134.
letter to Colvin on his Life of
Keats from, 324.

Morns, William, 35.

Moulton, Lord, 296,

Murray, John, 191.

Myers, F, W. H., 47, 134, 200.

National Art Collections Fund,

294*

National Review, 104, 157
review by Mrs Sitwell of Mere-
dith in, 206-207.

Naworth (family seat of the Earls
of Carlisle), 72, 73, loi.

New Arabian Nights (Stevenson),
201.

Newbolt, Sir Henry, 191.

New Club, 47.

Newton, Sir Charles, 19, 78-79, 80,
97, 100, 190

Nineteenth Century, article on Jow-
ett in, I99«

Norris, W. E , 274, 275.

Northcote, Sir Stafford, 190.
Nosiromo (Conrad), 302

Observer, The, Colvin's review of
Chance in, 304.

article in, on Lady Colvin's death,
337-338.

article in, on Colvin's death, 349.
Qn& Day More, play (Conrad), 302-

303-

Oppenheimer, Henry, 348.

Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 104.
Osbourne, Belle, 176, 265.

— , Mrs. {see also Stevenson, Mrs
R, L.), 112, 114.

, Samuel Lloyd, 167, x68, 169,

170, 175. 3:76, 178, 212, 214,
219, 224, 229, 242.

Owen, Sir Richard, 190.

Oxford, the Countess of {see Margot
Tennant).

the Earl of, 186,

Page, Nelson, 327.

Paget, Sir James, 190.

Pam, John Burnell, 9.

Palema, 262,

Fall Malt Qazette, 15, 20, 48,
articles ;n, 22.

Pall Mall Gazette — continued,
Colvm's contnbutions to, 35,
Colvin's review of Juventus
Mundi in, 74

Papers of Fleeming Jenhm (edited
by Colvin and Ewing), 196
Parsons, Alfred, 30.

Pater, Walter, 47.

Patmore, Coventry, letter to Colvin
on his Landor, 140.
letter to Coli^ on his Life of
Keats, 194- :^5.

Payne, Mrs F., 344, 348.

Penfield, 307.

Persse, Jocelyn, 291.

Petworth, the Colvins at, 328.

Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch on, 328
Philhps, Stephen, the Colvins' de-
hght in his work, 292.
article by Colvin on, 292-293.
voice of, 335.

Pinero, Sir Arthur, 348.

Pollock, Sir Fredenck, 8, 47.
Ponsarde, Madame (Lady Colvin's
sister), 58-59
Porter, Mrs., 348.

Portfolio, The, Colvin's contnbu-
tions to, 22
Poynter, Ambrose, 39
Procter, Mrs Anne, 173, 320.
letter to Colvin on his firsf book
on Keats, 191.

Quiet Corner of England, A (Champ-
neys), 90

Qmller-Couch, Sir Arthur, and St*
Jves, 244. * •

letter to Colvin on the Diamond
Jubilee, 254-255.
letter to Colvin about Petworth,
328.

Radowitz, Graf von, 79, 80.

Raikes, Cecil, 157,

Reeve, Henry, 190, 191,

Rescue, The (Conrad), 306.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 16-17.
Eibblesdale, Lord, 186, 188.
Richmond, B. L., 191.

, George, R.A., 190.

RitcMe, Mrs. Richmond, on Colvm's
forthcoming marnage, 287,
Rodd, Sir James Rennell, 191.
Rogers, Samuel, X90.

Roscoe, Mrs., 344.

INDEX

363

Ross, Robert, 310.

Rossetti, D, G , 42-46.
poetry of, 208
voic% of, 335
Rottmgdean, 38-40.

Roussel, Theodore, portrait of Col-
vin by, 48, 294.

Ruskin, John, 5. 300.
letters to Colvin from, 24-25, 49

Si Ives (Stevenson^ 244, 254.

St James's GaseUefmo$

Saranac Lake, Stevenson’s home at,
210.

Sargeaunt, John, 19 1.

Sargent, John Singer, R.A., 162, 164,
165, 170.

Savile Club, 47, 294.

Schuster, L F., 348.

Schwob, Marcel, letter to Colvin on
R L S.’s Letievs, 252-253.
Scott, iDr , Stevenson’s doctor, 160,
161.

Scnhner's Magazine, 148
Seccombe, Thomas, letter to Colvin
on Memories and Notes, 330-331
Selborne, the Earl of, 190
SekcUon from Occasional Writings
on Fine Art, A (Colvin), 22,
Selections from Landor (edited by
Colvin), a passage from the
preface of, 144,

Sharp, * Conversation,* 190. i

Shelley, P. B., 82
the burning of his body, 327 j

, Sir Percy, 166, 167.

— , La 3 y; 160, 166, 167, 171, 211
Shilleto, Richard, 10.

Sidgwick, Henryk 9, 47.
letter to Colvin on Xi, L. S/s Lay
Morals, 255,

Simpson, Sir Walter, 15 1
Sitwell, Rev. Albert (Lady Colvin’s
irst husband), 63, 64.

, Bertie, illness and death of,

X51, ist.

R. L. S.’s consolatory poem on
the death of, 151.

— Mrs. {see also Lady Colvin), and
the Fetherstonhaughs, 53-65.
first m&m&.ge of, 63. 64, 65.
her first meeting with Colvin, 63-
64.

review of Life md Letters of
Mohert Browning by, 104,

Sitwell, Mrs . — continued
her literary work, 104.
letters from R L S. to, 83-90,
93-94. 155

letters from Phihp Burne-Jones,
38-41, 152.

at Colvin’s British Museum home,
184.185

letters from Meredith, 205-206
her review of Meredith m the
National Review, 206-207
letter from Mrs R* L. S. to Col-
vin and, 213-215.
letters from Mrs. R L. S. to, 215-
222, 256, 257, 260.
letter from E. Burne-Jones on
the death of R. L. S., 238
Mrs R L S on the brother of,
260-261

letters from Henry James to,
276, 281, 282, 286
letter from Sir Edmund Gosse on
her forthcoBoing mamage, 287.
Mrs. W K Chfford’s description
of her wedding to Sidney Col-
vin, 289-291.

letter from Henry James after
wedding of, 291

letter from Sir James Bame on
Colvin’s kmghthood, 294-295
last home of, 301.
article by J. L. Garvin after her
death, 337-338.

article in the English Review after
her death, 338.

Colvin’s character sketch of, 339-
342 -

death of, 337.

letters to Colvin on the death of,
339.

Colvin’s memonal of, 339.
tnbutes to, 337-339
Hugh Walpole’s tnbute to, 350-
353 -

Chnstopher Morley s tnbute to,
353 -

friendship with Basil Champne3rs,
354.

Smith, Armitage, 330.

George Murray, 105.

Miss Mary Dunlop, 348.

Solomon, Simeon, 47, 347.

Stanhope, the Hon. Edward, 190.

Stamlao, 21 1, 213 . •

Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, 190.

364 THE COLVINS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Stephen, Sir Leslie, 69, 94, 202, 274.
Sterner, A., 277

Stevenson, R A. M (R, L. S.'s
cousin), 88, 95, 122, 132.

, R. L , 47, 94, 104, 300

photograph of, 31.
his Child* s Garden of Verses, 41.
his Inland Voyage, 41.
his Travels with a Donkey, 41
and Mrs Sitwell, 53
at Cockfield Rectory, 66-68.
at Hampstead, 67.
letters to Mrs. Sitwell from, 83-90,
93 - 94 *

on Colvin’s review of Champneys’
book, 89.

on Carlyle’s Essay on Burns, 90
poem written to Mrs Sitwell, 95.
note by Colvin on, 106.

Life of (Balfour), 106
and Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin, 112.
and Mrs. Osbourne, 114.
his marriage to Mrs. Osbourne, 124
consolatory poem on the death of
Bertie Sitwell, 15 1.
letter to Colvin from Mrs R. L S.
and, 152.

le'lter to Mrs, Churchill Babington,
153 -

letter to Mrs Sitwell, 155
and music, 169-170.
lett’er to Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell
from Mrs R L. S and, 171
anecdote of Dr. Jehyll and Mr
Hyde, 172.

memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by,

173*

visits of, to Colvin’s British
Museum home, 185,
verses by, 185-186,
and Meredith, 201,
on St. Ives, 236.

Edinburgh editton of his works,
237, 241, 278,
death of, 238-255.

E cation of VaihmaLetUr$, 24 ^z.

e on the Letters of, 250.
Andrew Lang on the Letters of,
250,

Lord Carlisle on the Letters of, 250-
251*

Will H. Low on the Letters of, 251-
252*

Marcel Sphwob on the Letters off
252-253.

Stevenson, R, L. — continued.

Mrs.' Humphry Ward on the
Letters of, 253.

Ceciha Loftus on the LetHrs of,

253-254*

Mrs R. L, S. on the death of, 256-
257 *

portrait of, by Mrs. R. L S , 258,
259-260, 264.
verses by, 259^266
Life of (Balfour), 260.
article by Collin on Heniy James
and, 267-271.

Henry James on the proposed
Life of, 277-278.

Colvin’s article in the Dictionary
of National Biography on, 277-

Henry James on the four-vol edi-
tion of the Letters of, 283-284,
letter to Henry James on Mrs.

R L Stevenson, 284. *

letter to Henry James on Mere-
dith, 285.

publication of the 4 vol edition
of the Letters of, 295.
and Conrad, 308-309.

Maunce Hewlett on, 329-330.
voice of, 336.

Mrs. R. L. {see also Mrs, Os-
bourne), 148

Colvin’s character sketch of, 148-
149.

letters to Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell
from, 149, 152, 154, 139, 160,
261-179, 209-231.
on Sargent’s portrait <3f R. L. S.,
164

on the death of K. L, S., 256-257.
letters to Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell
after R, L. S.’s death, 256-266.
on her portrait of R. L. S., 258,
259-260.

on Wetr of Hermision, 258, 259,
on Mrs. Sitwell’s brother, 260-262.
on the tomb of R, L, S., 2O2.
on the Vathma Letters, 262,
on the proposed Life of R. L. S„
263-264.
death of, 266.

Life of, 266.

— Thomas (R. L. S/s father),
death of, 273.

Mrs, Thomas (R. L, S/s
mother), 26S, 221, 262,

INDEX

Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas-—
letter to Mrs Sitwell from,* 70.
letter to Colvin on the death of
jR. L S., 240-242.

Strachey, J. St. Loe, 191,

Lytton, 330

Sturgis, Henry, 348.

•; , Mrs. Henry (Meredith*s

daughter), 205, 348.

Sumner, Lord, 191.

Swanson, J. H., 9*^

Swinburne, CharleJ Algernon, 320.
Andrew Lang on, 199.

On Jowett, 199.

Symonds, John Addington, 150,

151*

Taylor, Sir Henry, 167
letter to Colvin on his Landor, 140.

, Lady, 172.

, Miss, 160, 1 61, 167

Tennant, Sir Charles, 186

, Laura, letters to Colvin from, !

186-189.
death of, 189

Margot (afterwards Countess

of Oxford), 186

Tennyson, Lord, letter to Colvin on
his Life of Keats f 325.

Terry, Ellen, 126.

Thompson, Henry Yates, 105, 120
W. H., 10.

Thomson, Archbishop, 190
Thofough-Bfed, A (Colvin), 339-342.
Times, The, 348.

on Colvin^s work at the Bntish
Museum, 180-181.
letter to, from John Bailey, 325
Tree, Sir Beerbohm, 163, 164, 302.

, production of Beau Austin by,

233* 234-

Trelawny, Edward John, 80-82.
voice of, 336.

Trevelyan, Sir George, 190. ■
letter to Colvin on his Landor,

3:39*

M., 191*

Trist, Agatha, 347.

VACQOTniB* Auguste, 77
Vmlvma Letters, publication of, 242.
Valentine (Mrs, H, L. S/s French
maid), 163, 164, 171, 175. ^78.
3t79*

365

Van de Gnft Sanchez, Mrs, Life
of Mrs R. L. S. by, 266.
Velasquez, Colvin on, 16.

Vemce (Ynarte), 120,

Verrall, A. W., 9.

Victory (Conrad), 304.

Walker, Frederick, 15
Walpole, Hugh, 191.
tribute to the Colvins by, 350-
353 -

, Right Hon Spencer H„ 190

Walsmgham, Lord, 190.

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 277.
letter to Colvin on the R L. S.
Letters, 253.

Warner, Charles, 124
Watty Woggs (Mrs R. L. S.'s dog)*
150, 151, 164, 165, 173.

Weir of Hermiston (Stevenson), 107,
244-250, 258, 259.

Wells, H. G., 279, 280.

Went, Bessie, 347.

Wheeler, Dr. C E., 344.

Whewell, Wilham, 10.

Whibley, Charles, 27, 106.

Whistler, J. McNeill, Colvin on^ 13,
letter to Colvm from, 189.
Whitman, Walt, 83, 93
Wiel, the Hon Mrs. Taddeo, 348,
Wigg, Arthur Yallop, 349* *

Wilde, Oscar, 130, 132, 156, 163,
310.

Wilhams, Geoffrey S , 348.

Wilson, Sir Harry, 27.

Wirgman, T Blake, 260
Witt, Sir Robert, 296, 344.
Woermans, Dr. Karl, 105
Woggs. See Watty Woggs.
WoHstonecraft, Mary, 167
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 58, 190.
Woltmann, Dr. Alfred, 105.

Wood, Edward (afterwards Lord
Irwin), 191.

Word for Germany, A, from an
English Republican (Colvin),
49

Wordsworth, Wilham, 190.

Wright, W. Aldis, 10-12.

Yockney, Alfred, 34 ^*
Ynarte, 120.

Printed lu Grent Britain by T and A, Constablf Lti>
at the Utnversxt) Press, Edinburgh